November 18 1973
The father of 17-year-old kidnap victim Paul Getty yesterday waited in London to hear from the kidnappers after his million-pound ranson offer.
Mr Getty – son of the world’s richest man, Paul Getty I – made the dramatic offer late on Saturday night. It was his first public action since his hippie son was snatched in Rome four months ago. Mr Getty’s lawyer said the offer was the most he could manage.
In a message to an Italian paper which included a human ear and a lock of hair, kidnappers demanded £1,400,000 and threatened to cut off the boy’s foot if they did not get the money in five days. Police say tests on the ear indicate it probably belongs to Paul Getty.
Despite the family’s wealth the boy lived as an artist in a seedy part of Rome selling paintings and trinkets to tourists. His art connoisseur grandfather lives in one of Britain’s finest stately homes at Sutton Place, near Guildford, Surrey. His personal fortune is estimated at £400m – but he has refused to pay any ransom demand because it would encourage kidnap attempts on his other 14 grandchildren.
Although John Paul Getty III was eventually released after a ransom was negotiated, Jean Paul Getty Senior’s frugality in negotiating the ransom was heavily criticised at the time, with the kidnapping incident since being the subject matter of a television series, Trust, and a movie, All the Money in the World.
Anti-Detention Speaker Hits Out at Assemblymen
More than 2,000 people in Lurgan marched to a meeting where speakers called for “an end to internment” and what they described as “martial law conditions in Northern Ireland”.
The meeting reaffirmed the demand for peace, democracy and community reconciliation.
A motion agreed by those attending the meeting, organised by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, pointed out that the current talks for the formation of the Assembly Executive had not ended “internment or martial law”. It warned that those parties engaged in the talks were being used by the British Government to “justify continuing oppression of large sections of their supporters”.
The demonstration called on the people of Northern Ireland through their political parties, trade unions, voluntary organisations and churches to make it clear to the British Government that the present British settlement “can never be acceptable to the majority of our people”.
A small Protestant crowd gathered in Church Place behind the town centre security barriers and, although there was some jeering, the event passed off peacefully. Extra police had been drafted into the town, but they were not needed.
Mr PJ McClean, secretary of Tyrone CRA and an ex-Long Kesh internee, called upon all interested genuinely in peace with justice to work together to impress on Westminster the necessity of amending the 1973 Constitution Act to outlaw the evils from which violence has grown – the evils of discrimination, bigotry and biased law administration.
Internment without trial, Operation Demetrius, introduced by Brian Faulkner’s Northern Ireland government in 1971, with the reluctant approval of the British Government, was deeply loathed by the nationalist community who accused the northern government of disproportionally targeting Catholics, many with no connection to the IRA. It is estimated that, of the almost 2,000 people interned up to December 1975, only just over 100 were loyalists. Instead of helping to reduce violence, the introduction of internment was a catalyst for a significant escalation of the Troubles.
