Britain Admits Slain IRA Team Didn’t Plant Bomb

In a startling turn-around, Britain today said three IRA guerrillas were unarmed and were mistakenly believed to have planted a car bomb when they were killed by British commandos in Gibraltar.

Britain still defended the slayings, but a spokesman for the Irish Republican Army branded it a coldblooded “execution” and rioting flared in Roman Catholic sections of Belfast. Protesters burned at least 10 cars but no injuries or arrests were reported immediately.

Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe told the House of Commons that he had no doubt the IRA guerrillas, including a top female operative, were in fact planning to place a massive car bomb in the British colony. He contended the quick military action had probably saved lives.

“There is no doubt whatever that . . . a dreadful terrorist act has been prevented,” he said, lauding the Sunday shooting of the three unarmed guerrillas as they tried to walk across the border to Spain from the tiny colony at the mouth of the Mediterranean.

He said the British military were tipped off by Spanish police to the IRA members’ presence on the other side of the border and had shadowed them once they entered the colony. He said the military had mistakenly believed they already had planted a car bomb near the governor’s residence, timed to explode during a changing of the guard ceremony Tuesday.

Gave Rise to Suspicions

“Their presence and actions near the car gave rise to strong suspicions that it contained a bomb which appeared to be corroborated by a rapid technical examination of the car,” he said.

But he said that after the three were gunned down it was “established that (the car) did not contain an explosive device.”

He said British officials now believe the guerrillas had planted the explosives in another car and authorities were searching for that vehicle.

Howe gave no explanation why British army and Gibraltar sources for the last 24 hours had claimed the car was packed with 1,100 pounds of plastic explosives.

Even Armed Forces Minister Ian Stewart had said in London a car bomb had been planted outside the governor’s residence and had applauded the action for averting a “very serious incident”--what would have been the first terrorist attack on Gibraltar.

The IRA identified the dead as Sean Savage, 24; Daniel McCann, 30, and Mairead Farrel, 31, a leading figure in the IRA’s female wing who was imprisoned on explosives charges in the 1970s.

IRA sources in Belfast said Farrel was a member of the IRA’s seven-member ruling army council and her death represented a “devastating blow to the movement.”