Martin O'Hagan

Irish investigative journalist

Owen Martin O'Hagan (23 June 1950 – 28 September 2001) When O'Hagan was four his family returned to Lurgan, where he attended school and his father ran a television repair shop. He was fined £2 for the incident and let go. His mother had insisted he live in the Irish capital for a while to escape the political troubles of Lurgan, but this appears to have backfired. Back home from Dublin, O'Hagan had joined the Lurgan unit of the Official IRA, enjoying their socialist republican policies and military wing. becoming assistant editor underneath Pollak. O'Hagan soon began doing freelance work for The Irish Times, and in 1987 he joined the Belfast office of the Irish tabloid Sunday World, managed by Jim Campbell at the time. The paper reported on the sectarian violence of the Troubles, with a specific focus on the crimes of Robin Jackson (known as "The Jackal"), an Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) leader who had been involved in various brutal killings. In 2000, he appeared at London's High Court during one of the libel cases, where he stated "I have always tried to be squeaky clean because people will always try to cast this up in my face". While he often engaged in investigative journalism and serious stories, he was largely seen as a tabloid writer, with his colleague Jim McDowell saying "All he wanted was to be a hack". Bradbury later claimed to know the identity of O'Hagan's killer and had informed the Sunday Business Post.

O'Hagan was married to Marie , a Protestant woman who he met at the Carnegie Inn (better known as "Father Joes" or "Fa' Joes") in Lurgan. As one of the few "mixed" pubs in the town, the Catholic/Protestant couple would visit the pub often, including on the night of his murder. They had three daughters together, Cara, Niamh, and Tina. on Lurgan's Market Street, arriving there at around 8pm. Two hours later, they began to walk home, taking a different route than their normal one. At 10:30pm, while walking down Westfield Gardens and near the Mourneview estate, a silver Subaru Impreza parked outside a neighbour's house began to slowly move forwards. A gunman leaned out the driver's window and shot towards the couple. Marie reported that O'Hagan had called out "It's Mackers" as he saw the shooter, suggesting that he knew who his killers were. O'Hagan pushed his wife into their neighbour's hedge, while he took three bullets in the back. Following the impact, he told his wife to phone an ambulance, but he died before she returned from making the call. A silver Ford Orion used by the shooters to escape was later found burned out on the Mourneview estate. Police suggested the Orion may have been left as a decoy.

The NUJ has called for investigations into O'Hagan's death several times. On the 18th anniversary of O'Hagan's death, NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet and Irish general secretary Séamus Dooley called for an independent inquiry focusing on the assassination itself and the failures of the police in securing a conviction. Dooley has reiterated his concerns multiple times, especially following the murder of Lyra McKee in 2019. On the 19th anniversary of his death, the NUJ released a statement calling for UK and Ireland leaders Boris Johnson and Micheál Martin to support an independent inquiry, and said the failure to convict O'Hagan's killers "emboldens those who see themselves as being above the law". In September 2014, OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatović called for UK authorities to launch an investigation into the murder, arguing that "the failure to prosecute can create an environment of impunity for those who might attack journalists". In May 2015, O'Hagan's family announced a £50,000 reward for anyone who had information leading to the conviction of his killers.

In October 2006, O'Hagan's siblings made a formal request to Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan, raising concerns that no one had been charged in the five years since the murder despite the police apparently knowing who was responsible. Eight years into the investigation, new Police Ombudsman Michael Maguire was able to secure police intelligence regarding the murders of O'Hagan and around 60 others, after he threatened the PSNI with a court case.

Since O'Hagan's death, Sunday World owner Independent News & Media has afforded security measures to its journalists, such as installing bulletproof windows and panic buttons in their houses. Staff at the paper had received around 50 recorded threats by September 2011, such as former crime editor Paul Williams. In June 2018, the paper's Dublin office was sent a bottle labelled "sulphuric acid", which was seen an attack on its staff. The package was addressed to a former employee of the paper, and one administrator was injured while receiving it. In May 2020, the Sunday World and the Sunday Life were warned by police that the Ulster Defence Association were planning attacks on their journalists. Sunday World crime reporter Patricia Devlin, who like O'Hagan has reported on drug gangs and their paramilitary connections, has received threats and been doxed by fake accounts and criminals featured in her stories.