'I Blew Up Mountbatten,' Former IRA Commander Claims to Have Assassinated India's Last Viceroy

Dublin: In an interview with the Daily Mail, a man named Michael Hayes made the explosive claim that he was the mastermind behind the death of India's last governor-general, Louis Mountbatten. In the interview, Hayes stated that he, not Thomas McMahon, was responsible for Earl Louis Mountbatten's assassination in August 1979.

The Irish Republican Army assassinated Mountbatten, the great uncle of King Charles, to send a strong message to leaders in London that Northern Ireland should not be a part of the UK.

Mountbatten, a World War II veteran and second cousin of Queen Elizabeth II, died in a bomb blast in Donegal Bay, off Ireland's northwest coast, in the year 1979.

Three other people were killed in the bomb blast, including Mountbatten's teenage grandson Nicholas who was present with Mountbatten at that time.

Hayes claimed that he was Thoman McMahon's commanding officer in the IRA and thus had a greater role to play in the assassination plot.   

“I blew up Earl Mountbatten in Sligo, but I had a justification, he’d come to my country… Look at the Famine … are we to forget that? The Black and Tans? He came to my country and murdered my people and I fought back. I hit them back,” Hayes said in his interview, adding that he does not fear prosecution nor does he regret his actions.  

The report goes on to cite experts in saying that Hayes could, in fact, be prosecuted on the basis of his admissions by the Irish police and the Director of Public Prosecution.