Fatal Encounter: The Story of the Gibraltar Killings

Description

[rear cover:] On March 6, 1988, acting on Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s authority, members of Britain’s Special Air Service shot dead three unarmed Irish Republican Army operatives in Gibraltar. Their deaths set off a chain reaction of violence in Belfast that ultimately claimed eight lives and left three young men serving life sentences in prison for murders they did not commit. Now, after ten years of willed forgetfulness and cover-up, Nicholas Eckert has ripped open the badly healed wound of the Gibraltar killings with this detailed exposé. Drawing on a mountain of source material, Fatal Encounter explains what really happened on the Rock and why the killings there still haunt Ireland and Britain. Resurrecting the full horror of “Mad” March 1988, it is a haunting and totally damning indictment of both the SAS and the IRA. Nicholas Eckert is a former American Army intelligence officer and a long-time student of the conflict in Ireland." Published 1999. Fatal Encounter - Front Cover Half-title Printer's Imprint About the Author Dedication Jack Mitchell Verse - GiB: A Modest Exposure Epigram Table of Contents Glossary Cast of Characters Preface Prologue: A Row of Dominos One: Victims of Irish History Two: The Road to the Rock Three: A Killing Force Four: Countdown Five: The “Military Option” Six: Shockwaves Seven: Somebody’s Son Eight: Every Secret Crime [photoplates] Nine: “The Nature of the Business” Ten: Caught on the Conveyor Belt Eleven: Britannia Waives the Rules Twelve: Cops, Spooks, and Shooters Thirteen: Puzzlements Fourteen: Riddles, Buttons, and Hacks Fifteen: A Near Run Thing Sixteen: Rough “Justice” Seventeen: The Shadow of Doubt Eighteen: Death in the Afternoon Epilogue: Unfinished Business Postscript Rear Cover