Irish Republican News · December 10, 2003

Group demands the truth on collusion

The lobby group, An Fhirinne, has handed in a letter of complaint for the attention of British Secretary of State Paul Murphy during a picket to highlight collusion between British crown forces and unionist paramilitary death squads.

During a picket at Castle Buildings, the group handed in a letter of complaint for the attention of British Secretary of State Paul Murphy.

The letter states: ``In the mid-1980s, the British government adopted a policy of active control and direction of the loyalist death squads.

``The unionist paramilitaries were re-organised, resourced and directed by the British Intelligence service to ensure that their targeting, to quote a British Intelligence report, was `more professional'.

``Through the Force Research Unit and the Special Branch, British Intelligence recruited, or placed, large numbers of agents in the loyalist paramilitaries.

``Loyalist paramilitaries were armed with modern weapons. In December 1987 over 300 weapons were brought into the north of Ireland, with the full participation and knowledge of British Intelligence, and distributed among the loyalist death squads.

``British Intelligence updated and organised loyalist intelligence documents to ensure that the loyalist death squads would, in the words of a senior British Army officer, `concentrate their targeting on known Provisional IRA activists'.

``Not only did Special Branch and British Intelligence fail to protect citizens, they participated, organised or colluded in the murder of many of those killed.

``The British agencies which executed this policy remain in place today.

``The Special Branch officers involved transferred en masse into the PSNI. They remain in the PSNI today.''

The letter demands that the British government publishes Justice Peter Cory's completed report examining a number of killings - including those of Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson - in full and without any further delay, and that the recommendations of the Cory Report be acted upon forthwith.

It also calls for the truth about collusion to be told and the agencies involved to be disbanded.

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