Operation Flavius

Operation Flavius was a military operation in which three members of a Provisional Irish Republican Army cell were shot dead by undercover members of the British Special Air Service in Gibraltar on 6 March 1988. The three—Seán Savage, Daniel McCann, and Mairéad Farrell who were members of Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade—were believed to be mounting a car bomb attack on British military personnel in Gibraltar. Plain-clothed SAS soldiers approached them in the forecourt of a petrol station, then opened fire, killing them. All three were found to be unarmed, and no bomb was discovered in Savage's car, leading to accusations that the British government had conspired to murder them. An inquest in Gibraltar ruled that the SAS had acted lawfully, while the European Court of Human Rights held that, although there had been no conspiracy, the planning and control of the operation was so flawed as to make the use of lethal force almost inevitable. The deaths were the first in a chain of violent events in a fourteen-day period. On 16 March, the funeral of the three IRA members was attacked by a loyalist wielding pistols and grenades, leaving three mourners dead. Then, at the funeral of one of the mourners, the IRA shot two plain clothed British soldiers who had driven into the procession in error.

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