Rosemary Nelson

Rosemary Nelson (née Magee; 4 September 1958 – 15 March 1999) was a Northern Irish solicitor from Lurgan, County Armagh. She was killed by a bomb planted under her car by an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group, the Red Hand Defenders – a covername used on this occasion by the Loyalist Volunteer Force, in 1999. Nelson was posthumously awarded the Train Foundation's Civil Courage Prize, which recognises "extraordinary heroes of conscience".

Legal career Nelson obtained her law degree at Queen's University Belfast (QUB) School of Law. She worked with other solicitors for a number of years before opening her own practice in Lurgan in 1989. Nelson represented clients in a number of high-profile cases, including Michael Caraher, one of the South Armagh Snipers, as well as Colin Duffy, a Lurgan-based Republican paramilitary accused of killing two RUC officers just yards from Lurgan RUC Station in 1996. She also represented the Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition in nearby Portadown in the long-running Drumcree conflict against the Orange Order and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC).

Assassination Nelson said she had received death threats from members of the RUC as a result of her legal work. Some RUC officers made abusive and threatening remarks about Nelson to her clients, which became publicly known.

On 15 March 1999, Nelson was killed by a sophisticated bomb placed under her car outside her home in Lurgan. A loyalist paramilitary group calling itself the Red Hand Defenders – a flag of convenience – claimed responsibility for the murder. Journalists soon learnt that the murder had been carried out by the Loyalist Volunteer Force, specifically that its commander Mark Fulton had sanctioned it when on compassionate release from prison and that Thomas Ewing was the bombmaker. In September 2006 the British Security Service MI5 announced it would be represented at the inquiry. This move provoked criticism from Nelson's family, who reportedly expressed concerns that MI5 would remove sensitive or classified information.

The results of the inquiry were published on 23 May 2011. The inquiry found no evidence that state security agencies—including the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC)—had "directly facilitated" her murder, but "could not exclude the possibility" that individual members of those agencies had helped the perpetrators. and that some RUC intelligence about her had 'leaked'. All this, it said, increased the danger to her life.

Rosemary Nelson was survived by her husband and their three children.