EXCLUSIVE STORY
LOYALIST firebrand Willie Frazer is expected to be unmasked the teenage driver in the sectarian murder of the Reavey brothers. Frazer, who passed away in 2019, has often been linked to the activities of the notorious Glenanne Gang, claims he had always denied.
But there is increased speculation he will be named as a key member of the murderous UVF unit in the long-awaited Kenova report. The report, which was due to published last year but remains under lock and key, was carried out by retired Bedfordshire Chief Constable Jon Boutcher. He was asked by the government to investigate a number of murders, the possibility of collusion and more specifically the activities of alleged British agent Stakeknife who was head of the IRA's internal security unit and who has been linked to dozens of murders.
Security sources have told the Sunday World that Kenova will reveal "startling" revelations about Stakeknife.
SUSPECTED
But it is Frazer's alleged role in the murder of the Reavey brothers that will confirm what many have suspected for years. He had just passed his 15th birthday when he became involved with the Glenanne Gang, embittered by the murder at the hands of the IRA four months previously of his UDR dad, he was an easy recruit for the Glenanne Gang. It was enough to turn him into the teen getaway driver for one of the most controversial multiple murder atrocities of the Troubles.
Frazer grew up in Whitecross in Co Armagh, the same village that was home to the Reavey family. By the mid-seventies the UVF was engaged in a sustained sectarian murder campaign and the notorious Glenanne Gang was central to it in Co Tyrone, and part of it was Frazer.
Shortly after 6pm on January 4th, 1976, three masked men entered the Reavey home. The door had been left unlocked. Brothers John (24), Brian (22) and Anthony (17) were alone in the house and were watching television in the sitting room (pictured above). The gunmen opened fire on them with two British Sterling sub-machine-guns, a Luger pistol and a 5 Wembley revolver.
John and Brian were killed outright. Anthony managed to run to the bedroom and take cover under the bed. He was shot several times and left for dead. After searching the house and finding no one else, the gunmen made off on foot at first.
CRAWLED
Badly wounded, Anthony crawled about 200 yards to a neighbour's house and raised the alarm. He died of a brain haemorrhage three weeks later. Outside the Reavey home at the wheel of the getaway car is believed to have been Frazer.
The shootings of the Reavey brothers was claimed by the Protestant Action Force, a cover name used by the UVF, and who branded their victims as IRA terrorists. DUP leader (at that time) the Rev Ian Paisley used parliamentary privilege in the House of Commons to make a false allegation against the family, a slur that was believed to have been passed to him by Willie Frazer. Frazer was linked to the murders of the innocent brothers but always denied he had any involvement. But now the Boutcher's Report (will speak from beyond the grave) and is expected to confirm he was integral to the Glenanne Gang which was made up of serving UDR soldiers and RUC men and who carried out (extermination) a string of sectarian attacks on mainly innocent Catholics.
Frazer's father, a UDR soldier himself, had been murdered in August 1975, and over a period of a decade he lost four close family members, all connected to either the British Army or RUC, to the (PIRA) Provo's. The tragedies fuelled a pathological hatred of the Republican Movement.
After joining the Territorial Army, he went on to form a victims group, Families Acting For Innocent Relatives (Fair) as an advocate for those who had lost loved ones to republican violence. He was a fervent campaigner for the families of those murdered in the Kingsmill Massacre which happened the day after the Reavey brothers and at the time was believed to have been carried out by the IRA in revenge for the murder of the Reavey brothers.
Eleven Protestant workmen were lined up at the side of the road and shot. 10 lay dead while only one survived the massacre. The atrocity happened a few hundred yards away from the Reavey home.
It is also widely suspected that Frazer was involved in the distribution of weapons from an arms shipment from South Africa in 1987 which was divided up between the terror groups of the UVF, UDA and Ulster Resistance.
Two thirds of the haul was intercepted by the security forces but the rest got through without detection, much of it to believed to be still there (to this day) in dumps across Co Armagh & Co Tyrone particularly in and around Markethill where Frazer lived after his family moved from Whitecross. The Sunday World attempted to contact Eugene Reavey, the brother of those murdered, without success. Security chiefs are believed to be alarmed at the content of the Boutcher's Report as it will expose their own activities in the use of (informers/touts) agents and alleged collusion with paramilitary organisations.
Revelations around the activities of Stakeknife are expected to be particularly damaging. It is expected that he will reveal how a significant number of low level security agents inside the republican movement were 'sacrificed' to protect more senior informers. The allegation is that Stakeknife was the 'buffer' that protected double agents. As head of the IRA's (nutting squad) internal security unit, he was ideally placed to haul in suspects under false pretences.
With many thanks to the: Sunday World and Richard Sullivan for the EXCLUSIVE and original story.
Follow these links to find out more on this story: Spotlight on The Troubles: A Secret History (episode 5).
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