The North’s Attorney General has reversed an earlier decision not to hold a fresh inquest into the killing of Tyrone Councillor Patsy Kelly in July 1974.
The decision has been welcomed by West Tyrone MP Orflaith Begley.
Patsy Kelly was an Independent Nationalist member of Omagh District Council.
In the early hours of July 24th, 1974, he was returning home from work at a bar in Trillick when he disappeared. His body was found in a lake in Fermanagh three weeks later after it floated to the surface. He had been shot a number of times.
He was 35.
Orflaith Begley says this is the right decision, given the damning findings in the Police Ombudsman report on Patsy Kelly’s abduction, the levels of cover-up and collusion involved, and the RUC’s failure to properly investigate this brutal murder.
She praised the Kelly family, who she said have campaigned for almost five decades with courage and determination to uncover the truth.
