The Interview
James, Welcome to the interview. How are you?
Tell us a bit of your politics before you became involved with the SNLA.
I had supported the Miners Strike in 1984 but despite a march in London for Solidarity with the Irish I never really became active in Scottish politics until Jim Sillars won Govan for the SNP and Scotland United campaigned for Devolution I had joined the SNP by the time Sillars won his seat. The Sillars/Alex Neil Indy in Europe exercise failed to inspire the ordinary Scots.
Kenny MacKaskill had contributed to the booklet "A Case for Scottish Socialism" foreword by Nan Milton and the SNP seemed easily more to the left than Kinnock's Labour.
However by the time I had joined the SNP collections for a real Tartan Army in my area were long gone and Irish republican marching bands for the locals to support had disappeared with the help of the powers to be.
When did you hear of them (i.e. the SNLA?)
After I was arrested for hoax bomb warnings to economic targets in Scotland and England while acting alone.
I was contacted by an Irish republican friend from Dublin about ABs contact details which after I followed up received information or a couple of newsletters about the Scottish Separatist Group (SSG) that supported the aims of the SNLA.
When did you first meet the SNLA / become involved with them?
I kept in contact with AB until I was a free citizen again seemingly he informed me that republicans had held a meeting in Portlaois Prison Eire about my actions and approved of them after a decision had been taken on the E landing of the Wing. I was to meet Busby in Dublin in the 90s at a wee cottage which was rutland but should have been called Rat Land it was untidy and he wanted to go for a walk. I sensed being trailed and a gentleman fell of his bike in a park as if by play acting and I found that one bizarre, as I felt he was the one doing the following. Busby that evening offerred that I get more involved with him perhaps something more "revolutionary" which never came to pass.
Okay, so when you¢re involved with AB, what do you feel your role is? Are you an Agent? Are you more? What do you do for them?
I was communicating with him, leafleting for him and posting letters. I set up a Post Box for mail to be collected (HQ) I was not an agent for the Brit enemy but being used like a one man cell in a political context for the SSG as I had no other contact except Busby. I was never offerred recruitment to the SNLA (which would of required training in operation techniques, propaganda and anti-interrogation methods to employ if arrested)
What were you ordered to do by Busby?
No coercion to do anything just what I was doing except constantly being harangued to get on the Internet which did not interest me at the time, financial reasons etc...
Did you feel any problems with this?
No he was persistently persuasive not threatening I even turned down an offer to a bit reconnaissance at St Andrews University for an ideal site for a demo point against Prince William. I turned him down as I did not have the training and besides did not know the area well enough but I presume you could smell the cops in that location.
You ended up in Jail for what happened. In your own words, describe what happened?
I had been posting letters for a while until in the early hours one morning Grampian police raided me with their team complete with sniffer dogs to turn over the house. A few days before I had posted a letter and thought nothing of it at the time as I had did it before without opening and resealing the letter to see what I was being asked to post. I was taken to Aberdeen Police HQ for custody and computer equipment was taken and the filth had the cheek to waken my neighbours to demand keys to open washing areas and search the bin recess you would of thought I had been involved in a bombing campaign.
The letter I posted was to the Press & Journal of Aberdeen which contained information of setting up of SSG Comunn in Aberdeen and hoax bombs on the opening of the Scottish Parly and one which emptied Waverly Market (of which Lothian Borders Police tried to claim I made the phone call re the latter and the red phone box in the area the filth claimed I made the call still stands today not many left red phone boxes now) they were baffled as I knew nobody in the SSG let alone carry out any operation for the SNLA. If they had attempted to abuse me physical or psychologically or humiliation methods of interrogation then they would have failed as I knew nothing as my lawyer said
These were just SNLA commiques that I knew nothing about so I was just "the postman." The letter to P & J also made reference to the Royals attendance at Craithie church and the Braemar games and a planned demo. This is what worried the police more than anything than the Waverly incident or opening of Scottish Parly except for perhaps the sight of the Queenie fleeing with her entourage from the opening ceremony.
My interragattors had plenty concern about protecting their Royal elite in human form as symbolic figures representing the continuity of English crown powers (to protect their Brit constitution e.g. providing Royal Assent to legitimise repressive legislation) in living form as oppssed to their lesser concerns of elected politicians in Scotland.
When you had finished with AB, did he contact you again?
Once by phone after I had joined the SSP asking for me to leave the party and re-join his SSG of couse I turned him down.
Did he contact you after you had finished with his organisation? Were you surprised if he did?
Yes at least once by letter and perhaps another I cannot remember much was put through a paper shredder.
When I arrived back from craiginches after a week to 10 days on remand I had been given a PF release due to lack of evidence I had phoned my late father to make the definite break and inform him I was joining the SSP at the time things seemed different the SSP looked liked it was going places wi Tommy Sheridan and an Independent Scottish Socialist Republic was definitely on their agenda I liked what I read.
His final contact to date was when he contacted me at the begining of the year about an Irish republican prisoner who was unwell but had been released this annoyed me as this info could easily be obtained an to use the pretext of the illness of an old friend and his release from a 10 year jail sentence to contact me was pretty sick stuff.
The fact I got a visit from the SBs (police) two years after I left the SSG and was now in the Bona-fide legal SSP was astonishing to say the least. What the hell would I know about packages being sent to Prince William at St Andrews University in 2001 when I knew little of the SSG when I was connected with that orgaisation before my arrest in Sept 1999 let alone what activities others or AB were planning in the background.
Even if i had ever joined the SNLA which I didn't would I have been a one man cell? In books on Ireland I had read that Irish armed republican groups tended to use three or maybe four man cells but not mere contact with Mr Scottish Maoist himself.
Would you do it now?
No. Not to be locked up over a lot of nonsense. It was not worth it even spectaculars that Oglaigh na hEireann achieved against targets like Canary Wharf shadow the suffering meant Irish sufferred at the hands of their interrogators (check out Up The Rah! website by CIRA extracts from the Green book on Brit torture or cruelty and anti-interrogation by author IRA HQ Staff by Tim Pat Coogan at:
Certainly Andrew MacIntosh (Tosh) operation in Aberdeen success against the oil companies or economic targets must of inspired many Scottish republicans of the time but he was arrested and did a fair amount of time eventually to be betrayed by some tout, so it is said and likely murdered by the British state in Aberdeen Jail, Craiginches.
The IRA never underestimated the capabilities or determination of the British but read the IRA anti-interrogation techniques publicly available it is interesting sitting in a cell staring at a focal point and focus all your attention on that "crack in the wall?" it diverts attention away from your scheming interrogators who have left you in isolation to try and break you. But never inside. It is concentration at it's best Yoga if you like.
Where are you now? What kind of person are you now?
Involved in Scottish Republican Socialism in an active sense as part of a far bigger Movement with future potential not as an isolated individual being used by the alleged Dumpling tout in Dublin.
When you look back at the SNLA, then and now, what do you think?
I did not think much of the book Britain's Secret War and how accurate it was I cannot understand why the Brits banned it. I knew nothing of the SNLA their membership, numbers, peoples nothing so what can I say now?
If they were touts at work which was likely the case then this has happened in Ireland who have been fighting the British enemy for 800 years and it takes years of planning to build up a successful army with a discipline, well trained and a spirit that cannot be penetrated.. You see if they manage to break you physically until your beaten, stripsearched, teased or humiliated to the point of tears then that does not mean the spirit inside is broken or even tainted this is a common theme or current that flows from letters I have received from republican prisoners in Ireland.
The spirit of freedom remains unbroken inside a flame immortal and cannot be extinguished. Imperialism ecomomic, political or miltarily is bondage or chains not easy to break in the colony but it can be done with varied strategies over time but not by cult figures or one man planning.
Wear the enemy down your greatest foe is the quisling within but if you go down a military road martyres are fine but support for prisoners and political status essential for all as a party or army political prisoner should play a central road to the decisions taken by the struggle outside the jail. And if the military road is ever taken the build up takes time young recruits need nurtured for armed struggle but this is only as a last resort.
And if you negociate peace never decommission your weapons and surrender if necessary dump them for another day as an honurable reconciliation for your enemies withdrawl and freedom or Saorsa must be a lasting freedom or peace the ANC did not surrender weapons I do not know why the Provos have chosen this path.
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Inside A Terrorist Group - The Story Of The SNLA
By David Leslie
Chapter One: Introduction
I first came into contact with the Scottish National Liberation Army in March 1995. I am an Englishman. I had recently been transferred to begin working as the senior investigative journalist at the Glasgow offices of the "News Of The World", where the newspaper's Scottish edition is produced.
The Scottish National Liberation Army (SNLA) had just sent a number of letter bombs to British Labour party targets, including Tony Blair MP and George Robertson MP.
The letter bombs, which were timed to coincide with the Labour party's Scottish conference in Inverness, had created a minor sensation in Scotland and beyond. I was writing an article about the incidents when a member of the newspaper's staff informed me that a former member of the SNLA had just telephoned an anonymous message to the newspaper. He had condemned the attacks and criticised the SNLA itself.
This gave me a small unique angle and I included a brief report of the disgruntled former SNLA member's statement in the article which the "News Of The World" carried the following day.
The following week when I returned to work I was surprised, and a little startled, to receive a telephone call from an anonymous member of the SNLA. The caller asked for me by name and proceeded to question me about details of the telephone call received previously from the former member of the SNLA. For example, had the previous caller used a codeword?
I replied giving what little detail I knew, which wasn't much, and my caller seemed satisfied, politely thanking me for my trouble, and preparing to ring off.
I was a little surprised that a member of what is usually described as an extreme anti-English organisation should be so courteous to an Englishman like myself, and on impulse I intimated that as a professional investigative journalist I was interested in getting more information about the organisation and its activities. The caller replied that any information they gave out was only in the form of brief communiqués, and that the "News Of The World" might receive them in future. Then he rang off.
Since then the "News Of The World" has received many SNLA communiqués, and I have done a great deal of research into the Scottish National Liberation Army.
The results of that research form the contents of this book.
One of the many sins of the Scottish Establishment has been its incredible ability to engage in self-deception where the Scottish National Liberation Army is concerned.
For example, the Scottish media routinely describes the Scottish National Liberation Army as essentially a one-man band or, in contradiction, as a bunch of amateurish fantasists.
But a number of people have been convicted of SNLA activities over a period of twenty years, the SNLA has carried out effective direct attacks on British interests on two different continents, and the SNLA has a known interest in Weapons Of Mass Destruction, as well as an innovative approach to techniques of bringing disruption and chaos to the British State. All this is totally ignored as a matter of policy.
The SNLA, for example, was using hoax Anthrax letters against British targets in the USA in an experiment at least as early as November 2000, and pioneered the use of the Anthrax hoax technique in the UK before the technique became known and "popular" shortly after the September 11th attacks.
The SNLA was also experimenting with the toxin Ricin in the UK long before the existence of the toxin became widely known to the general public in the UK, or even to the British police, and it has an unhealthy interest in, and actual possession of, some extremely nasty unconventional weaponry in its arsenal. Some of these are described in detail here.
As this book will show, the SNLA plans its operations with elaborate care and ingenuity, and executes them with military precision, and the SNLA can be organizationally linked to some of the world's most dangerous terrorist groups, including the Real IRA, Islamic extremists, and the Russian Maoist Party.
There have been so many SNLA attacks, spanning a period of over twenty years, that only a limited number of the more significant or interesting of them can be described in detail.
And I have chosen not to cover the various SNLA trials in depth unless there is particular significance in them. There have been several major trials spanning a period of twenty years, all of which have received widespread coverage in Scotland and beyond, but some of them are now of little more than historical interest.
There are two distinct phases in the development of the SNLA.
The first phase, which covers the period from 1980 to 1995, is concerned mainly with the "traditional" methods of terrorism then employed by the SNLA. The second phase, from 1995 until the present, covers the period during which the SNLA began to show an interest in unconventional weaponry, and in particular in Weapons Of Mass Destruction (WMD).
And I have devoted a separate chapter to what is now Scotland's greatest mystery, the death-by-shooting of Willie McRae. I have uncovered evidence which links Willie McRae directly to the SNLA, and which, for the first time, publicly reveals the way McRae met his death.
The McRae case is essential to an understanding of the relationship between the SNLA and the British State. It illustrates the fact that the existence of the SNLA has forced the highest authorities in the British State to engineer an elaborate cover up in order to avoid a political scandal which threatens the integrity of the State itself.
As George Robertson MP (now Lord Robertson and former Secretary-General of NATO) stated in the "Herald" on March 15th, 1997, the SNLA has caused havoc and "mayhem". In fact, as this book will show, the British State has already suffered huge economic losses at the hands of the SNLA.
But, despite this, the activities of the SNLA are rarely mentioned by the Scottish or British media, and the SNLA has never been properly assessed or analyzed. Given the dangerous world we live in, I believe this situation is short-sighted and dangerous. The SNLA has already used chemical weapons in the UK (albeit in a limited and I believe purely experimental way).
A recent attempt (March 20th 2005) to place Lead Sulphate (an exceptionally lethal, but simple to manufacture, chemical) in London’s water supply was only very narrowly thwarted. But the SNLA could have killed thousands of Londoners, and permanently contaminated much of London’s water supply system causing economic catastrophe to the UK. What happens if or when another attempt is made successfully?
The SNLA is only a tiny organisation, but it intends to coerce the British State in order to force the British State to concede the SNLA's aims by the threatened or actual use of the Weapons Of Mass Destruction, which the SNLA - as will be demonstrated - undoubtedly possesses. To my certain knowledge the SNLA has experimented with potential WMD, and has perfected at least one type of WMD.
In my personal opinion it may become an even more dangerous force, and, unless certain radical reforms are undertaken, both Scotland and England will be on a head-on course for disaster.
This opinion is not mine alone. The consultant forensic psychologist Ian Stephen, referring to the use of Caustic Soda as a chemical warfare agent by the SNLA, has said that the SNLA campaign is liable to escalate:
"It seems to be a very well-planned exercise...It' s a deeply worrying development. ..It's very dangerous and the worrying thing is that there is no telling where it will stop".
At the time of writing (August 2005) a number of recent incidents bear the hallmarks of SNLA actions. There is no sign that the danger of a full-scale SNLA attack has diminished.
This work is an attempt to understand and hopefully to counter that danger.
It has not been an easy or a particularly pleasant task. Despite my original SNLA contact's formal politeness, I have during this research personally received more than one convincing death threat aimed at myself and at my family.
Nevertheless for the purposes of confidentiality, my main source from within the SNLA is referred to as "Alec" throughout this book. Needless to say, this is not his real name, nor is his real name or identity known to me.
My thanks to all those who have helped with this work, especially those SNLA members and former members who agreed to collaborate, and including those in the media, various police forces, intelligence services and political circles, in the UK and beyond, who have given me assistance in writing this book.
