DUBLIN’S GHOST GUNMEN

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 605, 6 March 1929, Page 9

DUBLIN’S GHOST GUNMEN

A JUROR MURDERED

OTHERS RECEIVE WARNING Times Cable LONDON, Tuesday. The intimidation of juries in Dublin has been brought to a fine art. Whenever a political prisoner is on trial a mysterious organisation known as "The Ghosts” warns the jurymen by circular not to find that prisoner guilty. Little attention was paid to these warnings until the authors, in a later circular, made no secret of the fact that they were responsible for the serious wounding of a juror named White. Their avowed reason was that he was a member of a jury which had found a certain political prisoner guilty. Shortly afterwards another juror named Armstrong was murdered. Nobody was arrested as a result of either attack. In the meanwhile juries to be served with warnings and a serious situation has been ex^atqd. The President of the Dail, Mr. W. T. Cosgrove, in a speech at Dublin, declared that the revival of gunmen’s activity threatened the entire social

fabric of the Free State. He said it was a deliberate conspiracy to defeat the ends of justice. Conspirators who failed by threats to intimidate jurors and witnesses had now resorted to murder.

“The position now is that there exists in Dublin a body of criminals intent on murdering citizens who exercise their rights of citizenship,” said Mr. Cosgrove. “If this conspiracy is not crushed we shall be faced with a most serious problem.”