Republican News · Thursday 31 January 2002

No confidence in British inquiry

BY LAURA FRIEL

The British Secretary of State John Reid MP has announced an independent inquiry into the 'break-in' and theft of sensitive documents at a Special Branch office inside the heavily guarded Castlereagh Police complex in East Belfast. His choice of career NIO civil servant Sir John Chilcott to head that inquiry, however, will inspire little confidence. The opinion of former Special Branch supremo now soon to be retired Chief Constable Ronnie Flanagan that no lives have been endangered because of the security breach similarly lacks credibility.

On St Patrick's night, three men entered a controlled access area of the complex, assaulted and tied up a Special Branch officer and then made off with a number of documents. In a statement on Tuesday, the Secretary of State described the raid as a breach of 'national security'.

Given the location of the internal office and the security surrounding the complex, rumours are rampant that this was an inside job.

The Unionist Mayor of Belfast, Jim Rodgers, has already blamed the 'security services' for the theft while SDLP spokesman Alban Maginness has talked of a scandal of 'Watergate' proportions.

Speculation regarding the content of the stolen files has reached fever pitch, with some suggestions that they may have contained top-secret information on 'intelligence assets', ie informers.

It seems ironic that the theft of documents would provoke the immediate announcement of an independent review while credible evidence of Special Branch collusion in actual murders has not resulted in an independent inquiry.

This is not the first occasion when the 'dirty war' has led to bizarre behaviour among the various agencies involved. On 10 January 1990, as preparations were underway to arrest British Army agent Brian Nelson, a mysterious fire destroyed the office of the investigation team who had been brought in from England to investigate allegations of collusion between the security forces and loyalist paramilitaries. The team was led by John Stevens and was based at a 'secure' RUC premises in Seapark.

Nelson, an agent of the British Army Force Research Unit (FRU), was involved in the assassination of Pat Finucane. Last year it was claimed by a former FRU agent, Martin Ingram, that the break-in and fire was the work of a Controlled Methods of Entry unit of the British Army, based at Repton Manor in England.

Stevens is presently involved in the third investigation into the activities of FRU and the killing of Pat Finucane and detectives from his team seized 'large quantities of documents' from British Army HQ in Lisburn in August 2000.

Last December, William Stobie, the Special Branch agent who supplied the weapons used in the murder of Pat Finucane, was shot dead shortly after the collapse of a criminal trial. Loyalist paramilitaries claimed the killing but there was speculation that the elimination of such an important witness to a future inquiry served the purposes of Special Branch.

The sensitive information that Special Branch keeps in its files may well include a taped confession from the man suspected of the killing of Pat Finucane. It was revealed in a television documentary last year that this had been withheld from the Stevens team. The individual who boasted of the killing fled the North after Stobie's murder and is believed to have sought protection from the Stevens team.

So who was responsible for the weekend raid? FRU, MI5, MI6, 14th Intelligence Unit, or even Special Branch? Answers on a postcard to John Gordon Kerr, Military Attache at the British Embassy in Beijing and former Officer Commanding FRU or to Chief Constable Ronnie Flanagan, former head of Special Branch.