Irish Republican News · November 11, 2003

Stevens seeks prosecutions

London police chief John Stevens, who is heading an investigation into British Crown force collusion with loyalist killers, revealed today his inquiries have led to new breakthroughs.

He has already established ``shocking'' levels of colluson in the murders of Belfast defence lawyer Pat Finucane and another loyalist victim, Adam Lambert.

But in Belfast today he confirmed he has sent files on another eight to ten murders to the Director of Public Prosecutions in the North of Ireland, and more were on the way.

Brian Nelson, a British military agent who acted as the intelligence officer for a UDA death-squad, is at the centre of the allegations.

Nelson, operating for the British Army's murderous `Force Research Unit', directed the UDA to kill Mr Finucane in front of his family at their North Belfast home in February 1989.

Stevens also confirmed his 12-year-long investigation into claims that the RUC police Special Branch and British army units were involved in assassination plots is now centred on an alleged top informer inside the IRA, referred to as `Stakeknife'.

Stakeknife himself carried out killings on behalf of the British Army, it has been claimed.

It is also alleged that loyalist gunmen who planned to murder Stakeknife were re-directed by Nelson to kill a West Belfast pensioner, Francisco Notorantonio, in order to save the life of the British Army agent.

Mr Nelson died earlier this year in mysterious circumstances, but Stevens claimed his investigation ``know exactly what happened and why it happened.''

He said he intends to continue his investigations for another six months.

Meanwhile, the British Secretary of State, Paul Murphy, said yesterday that he hoped a decision on Canadian judge Peter Cory's report into alleged collusion would be made by the end of the year.

The Cory investigation, which was set up to recommend whether public inquiries are necessary into certain collusion cases, has been criticised as a delaying tactic by the families of Pat Finucane, Rosemary Nelson and Robert Hamill, who all died in controversial circumstances.

In an interview in New York, Mr Murphy said that Judge Cory would come to London and Dublin next week to discuss his reports with the governments, and ``as soon as possible after that we'd want to make them public.''

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