Willie MacRae

(Died 7 April 1985)

Glasgow Solicitor, Willie MacRae, was regarded by many discerning Nationalists as uniquely well qualified to lead Scotland into Independence. His combination of total dedication, uncompromising integrity, outstanding oratical ability, charisma and sheer intellect endeared him to all. Although not a Repubican or a Socialist we have much cause to honour him: not least for his magnificent fight against Nuclear Waste dumping. The victor of the Mullwhacher Enquiry, against nuclear dumping there, and joint founder of the "Oystercatcher Movement", against dumping in Glen Etive, was the nuclear lobby's most formidable and feared antagonist in Scotland.

A life long SNP member, Willie was at various times legal adviser to, Vice Chair of and Parliamentary Candiate for the Party. No "narrow nationalist", he was simultaneously a captain in the Royal Indian Navy and a true friend of Indian Independence. The author of Israel's Maritime Law Code and emeritus Professor in the University of Haifa. After his death Israel planted a 3,000 tree forest in his memory. Yet Willie could and did make a busy commercial practice take second place to the problems of an Asian client in Glasgow, a neighbour in Kintail, or someone whose Civil Rights seemed endangered anywhere.

April 6, anniversary of the Declaration of Arbroath was regarded by Willie - and many others - as Scotlands's Independence Day. Many Scots gather at Willie's cairn each year on the Anniversary of his murder. In the early evening of Good Friday, April 5, Willie MacRae drove out of Glasgow towards his native Highland home in Wester Ross. He seems never to have arrived there. About the middle of the next morning, Willie was found (initially it is said by a Holidaying Australian Air Pilot) unconscious in his car which had gone off the road, close to where his Memorial Cairn and Flag post now stand.
Subsequently - just how subsequently is a point very much at issue - he was discovered to be suffering from injuries caused by a gunshot wound without ever having regained consciousness.

Later a handgun (alleged to have belonged to the deceased and to have been fired TWICE) was found, but too far from the car to have fallen from the hand of a suicide or have been thrown by someone who had shot himself. Until now the (non-partisan) MacRae Society with help from friends in the media and the law ; the London based 'Inquest', the odd MP, such as the late Bob McTaggart of Glasgow Central, has battled unremittingly to establish the truth only to see it's efforts thwarted by official obstruction. In a situation where every circumstance reeked of suspicion, the Government response has ever been: no suspicious circumstances, no prosecution, no fatal accident enquiry. NO, NO, NO !

Source and reading: http://www.scottishrepublicansocialistmovement.org/Pages/SRSMWhoKilledWillieMacRae.aspx



Further reading: http://aangirfan.blogspot.co.uk/2007/08/willie-macrae.html