Brown reveals Special Branch death plot

A new ‘whistle-blower’ book reveals that members of the RUC Special Branch tried to have a fellow officer killed by unionist paramilitaries.

In his book, ‘Into the Dark’, Johnston ‘Jonty’ Brown reveals that he received death threats for assisting a collusion investigation. The book is being serialised by the Sunday Life newspaper.

The former detective, who was responsible for obtaining a confession in the 1989 murder of Belfast defence lawyer Pat Finucane, writes that his life was threatened by the Special Branch.

“I was branded a rat following my assistance to the Stevens Inquiry investigation into Pat Finucane’s murder,” he said.

“Colleagues shunned me and one Special Branch man made a sinister threat to have guns planted in my home.

“When I walked into a room, colleagues simply walked out.

“They totally ignored me. They passed me in corridors as if I was invisible. I was a whistleblower, a rat.”

Mr Brown confirms that he was warned by UDA hit-man Ken Barrett, that his life was in danger from colleagues within the police.

Barrett admitted in a taped conversation how he had been urged by the RUC to kill Finucane, whose legal practice had become known for successfully defending republicans accused of IRA offences.

On one occasion another informer Billy Stobie, who was later killed by the UDA, intercepted a letter sent to a loyalist death squad which claimed that Brown was passing on the personal details of loyalists to republicans.

It si thought that the letter was an attempt by Special Branch officers to have Brown killed.

Months before Stobie was himself gunned down, Brown thanked him for saving his life.

Urgent Appeal