Letter: No ordinary murder

Sir: I knew Rosemary Nelson only slightly but she made an instant impression on me as a warm and spirited woman. She said she should never have been a lawyer as she didn't know how to pass injustice by. Far better to have been a teacher. Much less dangerous.

Now we know how right she was. Her death is an awful blow to enormous numbers of people world-wide who knew her as a human rights campaigner and to the peace process itself. Our hearts go out to her family and friends.

This is no "ordinary" murder. When a solicitor can be blown to pieces for doing her job the concept of the rule of law is shaken to its very foundations. All the more so when unease about the role of the RUC, if not in the actual murder then certainly in the hate-campaign that laid the ground for it, persists.

This is why there can be no immediate decommissioning. It is also why an independent enquiry into exactly how this happened is now vital.

NICK MARTIN-CLARK

London N17