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TIM O’BRIEN
Irish Times
24 May 2012
Intelligence that a detective sergeant in Dundalk was in collusion with the IRA was considered so unreliable that it was never passed to An Garda Síochána, the Smithwick Tribunal was told yesterday.
Senior counsel Michael Durack for the Garda Commissioner said an RUC intelligence report, known as an “SB50” was categorised as little more than “hearsay” and “gossip” by senior RUC officers.
Mr Durack was cross-examining one of the SB50’s two authors, a former detective constable in the RUC special branch regional taskforce based in Newry.
The former detective gave evidence by video link from a location in Belfast, sitting with his back to the camera. He was referred to only as Witness Q.
Witness Q told the tribunal that he, along with a fellow detective who gave evidence to the tribunal last week, had been told by a usually reliable source that Owen Corrigan of the Garda in Dundalk was keeping the IRA supplied with information.
He said the intelligence report had been drawn up in June 1985. In February that year the IRA had launched a mortar attack on Newry RUC station killing nine RUC officers. In May he said a further four colleagues were killed by a landmine on the Border at Killeen.
He said there was concern about the level of information available to the IRA. This was particularly true in relation to Killeen, as the IRA appeared to know exactly where the van, which had been escorted to the Border by gardaí, would be travelling.
BBC
23 May 2012
Ch Supt Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan were killed in 1989
An RUC intelligence source who was asked for information following two separate atrocities that killed 13 RUC officers later warned of an alleged Garda mole within Dundalk station, a tribunal has heard.
Investigations were ongoing into an IRA bombing of Newry police station in 1985 that killed nine officers, and four deaths in a border bomb attack the following May.
The Smithwick Tribunal is looking into claims a garda mole colluded with the IRA in the murders of two RUC officers.
Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Robert Buchanan were shot dead in an ambush in March 1989 as they returned from a meeting in Dundalk garda station.
Giving evidence to the tribunal in Dublin on Wednesday, former Newry special branch officer, Witness Q, said he met the source, grain smuggler John McAnulty, in June 1985.
Mr McAnulty told him, along with his colleague Witness Z, that a detective sergeant in Dundalk, Owen Corrigan, was passing information to the IRA.
This information was written up as an SB50 intelligence document and passed to his superior officers.
Witness Q, who gave evidence anonymously via videolink from Belfast, said he assessed this information as “credible and believable”.
Mr McAnulty, who was tortured and murdered by the IRA four years later, was not an IRA member but was described by the witness as someone who mixed with “high ranking and the lower echelons” of the organisation through his smuggling and transport businesses.
Despite repeated questioning from lawyers for both the Irish Police (gardai) and Owen Corrigan, the witness could only recall what he had been told by Mr McAnulty and not how the source had got this information.
This was something Mr Corrigan’s lawyer described as “astonishing”.
Counsel for the Garda Commissioner, Michael Durack, said there was a big difference whether McAnulty had learnt this information “from a senior member of the IRA or from a man in a pub at two in the morning”.
He also pointed out that Witness Q’s superior officer had treated the intelligence as “hearsay and gossip” and that it had never been passed on to the gardai.
He said: “To discover a policeman was a traitor and a potential risk to his colleagues and yours, I would expect you to inquire very deeply into the nature of the intelligence and you didn’t”.
Mr Durack also said the tribunal had heard from then very senior members of the RUC who said they had “not been aware” of this intelligence, and if they had, it would have been treated as a matter of great urgency.
Witness Q said that was a matter for the authorities to answer.
Earlier, the tribunal was granted more time to finish its work. It was originally due to end last November, but a six-month extension was granted.
The deadline was due to expire this month, but a fresh extension was granted after tribunal chairman Judge Peter Smithwick wrote again to the Irish government seeking five more months to produce his report.
Irish Minister for Justice, Alan Shatter, told the Dail that the new deadline was 31 October.
Judge Smithwick said he had been on course to complete public hearings by the end of May but “in recent days two very significant former RUC Special Branch officers who had previously been unwilling to give evidence have changed their minds”.
Reluctance
The judge had previously been critical of the reluctance of some officers with potentially important evidence to come forward.
He also expressed his pleasure that co-operation had been reached with the British authorities to allow “highly relevant and potentially significant” intelligence information to be put on the tribunal record.
However, the “final substantive witness”, retired Detective Garda Sergeant Owen Corrigan, is ill and will be unable to give evidence for a number of weeks.
Mr Corrigan is one of three former gardaí with representation before the tribunal.
The other two, retired sergeant Leo Colton and former sergeant Finbarr Hickey, have both given evidence recently.
The tribunal has so far heard from 190 witnesses and is approaching its 100th sitting day at a cost of more than nine million euro.
By Michael Brennan and Gareth Naughton
Independent.ie
21 May 2012
JUSTICE Minister Alan Shatter is to give a five-month time extension to the €8m tribunal investigating the murder of two RUC officers by the IRA.
The Smithwick Tribunal has been running for seven years — and had been told that it would have to finish its work by the end of this month.
But Judge Peter Smithwick has now written to the clerk of the Dail asking for this deadline to be extended to the end of October. He said that he would be reducing costs by slimming down the tribunal’s legal team and by “downsizing” its office space in Blackhall Place in Dublin.
Mr Shatter told the Irish Independent yesterday that he would be recommending the time extension to the Cabinet.
“The tribunal hasn’t completed its work. It needs extra time to finish hearing some witnesses — some witnesses that they did not expect to come forward did come forward,” he said.
The Smithwick Tribunal was set up in 2005 to investigate suggestions that gardai colluded in the murder of RUC Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and RUC Superintendent Robert Buchanan in 1989. The pair were ambushed by the IRA minutes after leaving a meeting with gardai in Dundalk.
Mr Shatter had been involved in a row with the tribunal after he told it to finish its work by the end of last November.
But he later agreed to extend its deadline until the end of this month — and is now prepared to give it until the end of October. It has cost €8m so far.
In his letter to the clerk of the Dail, Judge Smithwick said that he had been on course to complete public hearings by the end of this month with the appearance of the “final substantive witness” — former Garda Detective Sergeant Owen Corrigan. But he said that he had agreed to give him an extra two weeks on medical grounds.
“As matters stand, I hope that Mr Corrigan can attend to give evidence in two or three weeks’ time, but this will obviously depend on his medical condition,” he wrote.
Mr Corrigan was named as a garda passing information to the IRA in an intelligence document compiled by an anonymous RUC Special Branch officer.
Judge Smithwick said this officer — known as Witness Z — had given “important evidence” by video link earlier this month. And he reported that he had managed to get “highly relevant” British intelligence information put on the tribunal record with the co-operation of the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
The Smithwick Tribunal had been criticised for failing to hold public sittings from the time it started in 2005 until June last year. Since then, it has heard evidence from 190 witnesses over the course of almost 100 days of public sittings.
PM warned speculating about Garda leaks to IRA would benefit terrorists
By Gerard Cunningham
Belfast Telegraph
16 May 2012
Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her Northern Ireland Secretary Tom King were urged to play down allegations of Garda collusion with the IRA following the murders of two RUC officers.
The confidential briefing note for the Prime Minister warned that adding to speculation about Garda collusion would be “playing the terrorists’ game”.
The notes said that answers to Parliamentary questions about alleged leaks from gardai to the IRA killers of Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan should note “there was not a shred of evidence to substantiate these allegations which are extremely dangerous”.
The confidential notes were among a series of documents relating to the lethal attack which were handed over to the tribunal by the PSNI and read into the record by barrister Justin Dillon SC.
Another document prepared following the publication of Bandit Country by journalist Toby Harnden complained that it was “blatantly obvious the material contained within the publication emanated from official sources”.
“Material content including photographs could only be sourced via the security network,” the document said.
RUC intelligence documents included 1996 reports about the IRA kidnapping and interrogation of former Garda Detective Sergeant Owen Corrigan and Francie Tiernan, a business associate.
The reports noted the kidnapping took place “without authority from senior command”, and that those involved were later subject to “internal disciplinary procedures” with the Provisional IRA.
Mr Corrigan, who is represented before the tribunal, denies allegations of collusion.
Story so far
The Smithwick Tribunal was set up in 2005 to examine the allegations of Garda collusion in the deaths of the the two most senior RUC officers killed during the Troubles. Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan were shot dead in an IRA ambush as they returned from a meeting in Dundalk Garda station in March 1989.
TIM O’BRIEN
Irish Times
16 May 2012
TWO MEMBERS of a 1989 IRA ambush team that killed two senior RUC officers were yesterday named as well-known Dundalk republican Patrick “Mooch” Blair, and a man identified as Leonard “Hard Bap” Hardy.
Chief Supt Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan were shot dead in south Armagh on March 20th, 1989.
The officers were killed as they returned from a meeting in Dundalk Garda station. The Smithwick Tribunal is investigating suggestions that Garda members based in Dundalk may have alerted the IRA to the presence of the RUC men in Dundalk that day.
Examining a range of documents, intelligence reports and summaries of intelligence reports supplied to it by the PSNI, the tribunal was told by Justin Dillon SC, that one precis of an intelligence document dated March 1989, the same month as the ambush, named Mr Blair and Mr Hardy as being part of the ambush team.
The documents also contained copies of briefing notes for former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and northern secretary Tom King, which were prepared within hours of the murders.
The notes encouraged the then prime minister and secretary of state to set the killings in the context of the wider sectarian murders that were happening that year. This was because “the impression should not be given that we are only really concerned about murders of the British security services”, the notes explained.
But the notes cautioned that questions relating to allegations of collusion should be met with the answer that speculation “plays the terrorists’ game”. The material stressed there was “no shred of evidence to support these allegations, which are extremely dangerous”.
The prime minister, in particularly, was urged to “avoid fuelling dangerous rumours” by responding to such speculation.
The documents were prepared for the politicians to use in anticipation of the issue being raised in the House of Commons.
News Letter
13 May 2012
THE south Armagh informer who told the RUC that Garda Sergeant Owen Corrigan was passing information to the IRA was later tortured and murdered by the republican terror outfit.
Despite the PSNI slamming the identification of police sources in the tribunal, Warrenpoint businessman John McAnulty was named as the informer who told the RUC that he had heard Mr Corrigan was passing information to the IRA.
That intelligence was recorded in an RUC Special Branch document called an SB50. This particular SB50 is one of the core pieces of intelligence in the Smithwick Tribunal that is probing claims of collusion between the Garda and IRA.
It is looking at claims that members of the Garda passed information to the IRA in relation to the murders of Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan on March 20, 1989. They were killed in an IRA ambush minutes after leaving a meeting at Dundalk Garda Station.
Retired Garda sergeants Owen Corrigan, Leo Colton and Finbarr Hickey have been named by the tribunal. All three deny the allegation they colluded with the IRA.
Yesterday the former RUC Special Branch detective who recorded the intelligence gave evidence to the tribunal anonymously as witness Z. He gave evidence by video link from Northern Ireland to the hearing room in Dublin and sat with his back to the camera as he spoke.
Witness Z had been a constable for RUC Special Branch in Newry in 1985. He told the tribunal that in June of that year he had a face-to-face meeting with Mr McAnulty who told him that Mr Corrigan had been passing information to the boys, referring to the IRA.
The SB50 on which witness Z recorded this information was shown to the tribunal. Parts of it, including the rating of how reliable it was, have been redacted.
Witness Z said Mr McAnulty was credible. He was not paid for information although he occasionally received small sums for expenses.
Mr McAnulty was a grain importer, and according to witness Z he was involved in smuggling.
He was not a member of the IRA, but witness Z told the tribunal that he had contact with members of the Provisional IRA at varying degrees and levels within the south Armagh area.
The tribunal heard that Mr McAnulty had been a casual police informer for 17 years.
Mr McAnulty was abducted by the IRA on July 17, 1989 from a pub in the Republic. His body turned up the following day showing evidence of torture at Culloville in south Armagh.
The IRA claimed the shooting and alleged that Mr McAnulty had been passing information to police which had led to the arrest of Raymond McCreesh, who would later die on hunger strike in the Maze prison.
It was reported at the time that Mr McAnulty’s details were found by notes stolen from Mr Buchanan’s car following the murders of the two RUC men four months earlier.
The tribunal also heard that Mr Corrigan had been noted as missing from work without an explanation on the same evening that Mr McAnulty was kidnapped.
No evidence has ever been presented that Mr Corrigan was in any way involved with the kidnapping of Mr McAnulty.
Witness Z also claimed that Mr Corrigan was well known among the Newry Special Branch at the time as someone to be avoided when sensitive information was being shared.
He also said he was present in Dundalk Garda Station on at least one occasion at a meeting with Garda inspector Dan Prenty when Mr Corrigan walked into the room. He said Mr Prenty immediately signalled for him to stop talking.
During cross examination of witness Z, counsel for Mr Corrigan, Jim O’Callaghan, claimed that his solicitor had discovered the reliability rating of the SB50 was C6, which would not be a high rating in terms of reliability.
Mr Corrigan has consistently denied collusion and has defended his good name previously in libel proceedings.
Witness Z agreed with counsel for the tribunal that the intelligence from Mr McAnulty was hearsay. Witness Z said he had not been keen to give evidence to the tribunal but said he had in the end for the sake of justice.
“I have been trying to forget these things for the last 11 years. I didn’t really want to come here but I came here for the sake of justice and to get it out of my system once and for all,” he told the tribunal.
Judge Peter Smithwick paid tribute to the witness as a “courageous man” and said his evidence had been useful and that he was “deeply grateful for it”.
Mr Corrigan had been due to give evidence to the tribunal for the second time next Tuesday, but the court was told Mr Corrigan was unwell.
The tribunal is due to sit again on Tuesday.
TIM O’BRIEN
Irish Times
11 May 2012
The republican source who told the RUC the name of an IRA mole among Dundalk gardaí, was this morning named as Warrenpoint businessman and grain smuggler John McAnulty.
Giving evidence by video link from Belfast, and identified only by the cipher Witness Z, a former special branch detective told the Smithwick Tribunal McAnulty had provided the name of then det sgt Owen Corrigan of Dundalk Garda station as a man who was keeping the IRA informed of Garda and RUC activities. McAnulty was shot dead in 1989.
However, the naming of McAnulty by Witness Z led to heated exchanges at the tribunal with counsel for the PSNI Mark Robinson asking on a number of occasions for a recess, and claiming the naming of McAnulty “beggars belief”.
Mr Robinson said it put the lives of others at risk, and could “seriously damage the flow of information” from existing sources.
Mr Robinson told the tribunal it was “outrageous” that a source, even one who was now dead, could be named and he accused the tribunal of maintaining “radio silence” when he had attempted to find out what was scheduled to happen this morning.
He said this was symptomatic of the tribunal’s attitude to the PSNI since public hearings began last June.
In an unusually tense exchange Mr Robinson was told by chairman of the tribunal Judge Peter Smithwick “there must be a limit to the amount of things the PSNI can cover up and sweep under the carpet”.
Witness Z told the tribunal he was the author of an intelligence report known as an SB50, which he sent to his superiors naming Mr Corrigan as an IRA mole.
He said the SB50 was based on information received from McAnulty four years before was abducted and murdered in July 1989. Witness Z said the IRA had subsequently claimed McAnulty had been an informer for 17 years.
Michael Durack SC for the garda asked Witness Z to confirm the SB50 had been written as “police speak” and not a verbatim report of the source’s own words, as it should have been.
However Witness Z said the SB50 “fully reflects what he [Mr McAnulty] told me, what he meant to say. It may not be in the words he spoke but certainly it is what he inferred, what he said”.
Witness Z said Mr Corrigan was well known among the Newry special branch at the time as someone to be avoided when sensitive information was being shared.
He also said he was present in Dundalk Garda station on at least one occasion at a meeting with Insp Dan Prenty when Mr Corrigan walked into to the room. He said Mr Prenty immediately signalled him to stop talking.
TIM O’BRIEN
Irish Times
8 May 3012
SMITHWICK TRIBUNAL: A FORMER Garda sergeant was yesterday named as a trustworthy IRA informer who identified two RUC officers for assassination in 1989.
However, former Garda sgt Leo Colton told the tribunal that allegations he had used hand signals to identify the officers as they arrived at Dundalk were “ridiculous”.
Giving evidence to the tribunal, Mr Colton said he was standing on the steps of Dundalk Garda station shortly before 2.30pm on March 20th, 1989, but did not see the two RUC men arrive and did not signal to the IRA that the men were there.
Chief Supt Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan were killed in an IRA ambush within two hours of arriving for the meeting in the Dundalk station.
They were the highest ranking RUC officers to be killed during the Troubles, and the tribunal is inquiring into suggestions that members of the Garda colluded with the IRA in their murders.
Under cross-examination by Mary Laverty SC, for the tribunal, Mr Colton said he had been leaving the station to go on patrol but had been delayed by a farmer seeking information on regulations covering tractors and trailers.
But in an apparent contradiction in Mr Colton’s oral and written statements, Ms Laverty said that at the time of the killings Mr Colton claimed he had been called back to the station by the station orderly.
It had been the station orderly who asked him to handle the farmer’s query, Mr Colton said. Ms Laverty said there had also been suggestions that hand signals were made to the IRA from the steps of the station while Mr Colton was there. Mr Colton replied that this was “ridiculous”.
Mr Colton acknowledged that former colleague sergeant Tom Byrne had made allegations against him as to his general conduct, including an allegation that he had removed a Garda file concerning Dundalk gaming arcade owner and noted republican Jim McCann.
But he said he had never seen such a file on Mr McCann in the station and he did not believe such a file existed. He said Mr Byrne had “a vendetta against Jim McCann because Jim McCann wouldn’t give his son a job”.
Mr Colton acknowledged a complaint was also made against him for writing a reference for a Brian Ruddy to assist Mr Ruddy in the running of his motor dealing business. He said he was not aware Mr Ruddy was associated with known republicans.
Mr Colton left the force weeks ahead of a disciplinary hearing and subsequently went to work for Mr McCann in his gaming business in Dundalk. He acknowledged he also worked for another noted republican, Eamon Devlin, who was wanted by the RUC.
He also denied he had asked fellow Dundalk sergeant Finbarr Hickey to sign application forms for passports which subsequently benefited IRA members. Mr Hickey was convicted of offences connected with the passport affair and served a prison term. Mr Hickey has previously told the tribunal he had signed the passports as a favour to Mr Colton.
Counsel for the PSNI, Mark Robinson, put it to Mr Colton that he was a “trusted” supplier of documents to the IRA and was the trusted officer who had identified the visiting RUC men. Mr Colton denied the allegations.
BBC
8 May 2012
A retired Dundalk garda has described as ‘ridiculous’ suggestions he used hand signals to notify the IRA of the presence of RUC officers at the garda station.
Former sergeant Leo Colton was giving evidence to the Smithwick Tribunal, which is investigating allegations of garda collusion in the murders of RUC officers Harry Breen and Bob Buchanan.
The men were assassinated by the IRA in a border ambush minutes after leaving Dundalk garda station in March 1989.
The tribunal heard Mr Colton had been standing on the steps of the garda station around the time the officers arrived, however, Mr Colton said he had not seen them or been aware they were due to attend the station.
The retired sergeant was also questioned about his involvement in the production of false passports which ended up in IRA hands.
Former Dundalk sergeant Finbarr Hickey told the tribunal last week he was asked to sign blank passport applications by Mr Colton – an allegation he denied.
Leo Colton retired in May 1991 just over a week before disciplinary proceedings were due to begin against him over the issuing of a trade plate to a known IRA associate, the tribunal heard.
Mr Colton acknowledged he had written a recommendation for Mr Brian Ruddy to enable him to acquire a trade plate for use in his motor vehicle business, but denied knowing anything about him, including Mr Ruddy’s alleged involvement in the importation the illegal angel dust growth hormone.
When informed of the investigation, Mr Colton said he ‘just laughed, I thought it was a complete Mickey Mouse set-up… the most I could have been fined was 10 punts’.
He denied his early retirement was in any way connected to the impending disciplinary proceedings.
By Ed Curran
Belfast Telegraph
8 May 2012
In the spotlight: Martin McGuinness, challenged by an IRA victim’s son during the Irish presidential election
Transparency and openness. So much in public life has revolved around these two words in the past week – from the phone-hacking scandal in Rupert Murdoch’s empire to Cardinal Sean Brady’s failings over child sex-abuse.
In the midst of all this headline-grabbing controversy, one other public figure closer to home has withstood another wave of claims about his past.
The deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness, dismissed evidence given to the Smithwick Tribunal as fantasy. He said he totally rejected claims that he was the IRA’s northern officer commanding who approved the use of ‘human bombs’ and other acts of terrorism.
Mr McGuinness has been in outspoken form of late. He told a conference in London last week that the Good Friday Agreement signalled the end of the Union.
He has called for the closure of the Northern Ireland Office and says a Secretary of State is needed no longer. He reveals that Ian Paisley said to him at their first meeting: “Martin, we can rule ourselves … we don’t need these direct rule ministers coming over here and telling us what to do.”
However, whatever the future of the Union or the Northern Ireland Office, it is the questions about the deputy First Minister’s past which refuse to go away. The evidence to the Smithwick Tribunal has resurrected the spectre of Mr McGuinness in the IRA.
A year ago, similar allegations surfaced during the Irish presidential election, with victims of the IRA confronting Mr McGuinness on the streets of the south. Even the interrogatory powers of the Republic’s best journalists and interviewers failed to cast any more light on his IRA background.
It is a measure of the extent to which the community wants to preserve peace and political stability that the dismissive comments made by Mr McGuinness about the Union and with regard to his IRA involvement have not led to any serious fracture in relations in the First and deputy First Minister’s office.
Peter Robinson says the Stormont coalition will remain intact. It would only be threatened if firm police evidence of involvement in terrorism led to charges in accordance with the due process of the law.
In many minds – not least the IRA’s victims – unease and disquiet will probably never abate. More likely than not, Mr McGuinness may live out his life without the full facts of his militant years ever emerging.
When Peter Robinson says it up to people to come forward with evidence, there appears little, or no, chance of that happening.
Martin McGuinness has made an impressive mark as deputy First Minister. He has shown courage in standing up against dissident violence and he has positively and enthusiastically promoted Northern Ireland at home and abroad.
However, as Rupert Murdoch and Cardinal Brady have found to their cost in the past week, openness and transparency are essential requirements of public life today.
Compared to MPs at Westminster, who cheated on their expenses, or ministers in the Irish government, who accepted bungs from corrupt businessmen, those at Stormont who keep their past from public scrutiny belong to a special league.
How, it may well be asked, can they demand transparency and openness in public office if they fail to practice it themselves?
How can they pronounce in moral judgment on such issues as child-abuse in the Catholic Church – as Martin McGuinness did last week – if they refuse to reveal the secrets of their own past activities?
It appears that, unless someone comes up with a formula agreed by all sides which would allow light to be shone on the so-called ‘dirty war’ of the 1970s and 80s, we will never read the full, unabridged, unexpurgated version of events surrounding Martin McGuinness, or many others.
We will continue to hang on every new revelation about child-abuse and phone-hacking, but we will remain in the dark about matters which are even more serious. That is because our unique brand of political stability depends on this imperfect arrangement.
The peace process decrees that boats cannot be rocked unduly and that embarrassing questions are swiftly airbrushed from our minds.
So long as transparency and openness are not taken as seriously here as they are elsewhere, things are unlikely to change.
The real casualty of the Good Friday Agreement is not the Union, as Martin McGuinness claims. The real casualty is truth.
By Alan Murray
Belfast Telegraph
3 May 2012
Martin McGuinness has denied reports circulating in Dublin that he has made contact with the Smithwick Tribunal to discuss the possibility of appearing at it.
A spokesman for the Deputy First Minister said last night that there was “no truth at all” in reports circulating at the tribunal that he had contacted its lawyers.
Last week Mr McGuinness denied suggestions he was Officer Commanding of the IRA’s Northern Command when two senior RUC officers were murdered.
Former army intelligence officer Ian Hurst told the tribunal that he understood that in 1989 Martin McGuinness was the O/C of Northern Command and would have had to sanction the ambushing of Chief Supt Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan at Jonesborough on their return from Dundalk Garda Station.
News Letter
2 May 2012
THE PSNI has received intelligence in the last year that a probe into claims of collusion between the Garda and IRA has become a “significant issue amongst leading republicans”.
And the Smithwick Tribunal also heard a claim yesterday that some testimony given to the inquiry has been deliberately false to try and end proceedings early.
The claims emerged as PSNI Detective Chief Superintendent Roy McComb gave evidence to the Smithwick Tribunal.
An intelligence precis read by Mr McComb also alleged that since the 1970s a number of gardai and customs officers based in the Republic have provided information to the Provisional IRA, particularly forewarning of searches and arrests.
“The current Smithwick Tribunal has become a significant issue amongst leading republicans,” the precis stated, and added that PIRA members are concerned the testimonies of certain individuals will lead to other material coming to light.
“By this, they mean information about past members and leaks from An Garda Siochana,” it said.
The precis further claimed that the PIRA are anxious that the tribunal should complete its work as soon as possible.
Mr McComb said the intelligence – which was rated as “credible, reliable and accurate” – also claimed that key PIRA members are aware that some testimony to the tribunal is deliberately false and is intended to bring it to an early conclusion.
The Smithwick Tribunal is probing claims of collusion between the Garda and IRA, specifically in the murder of the two most senior RUC men to be killed during the Troubles.
Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan were murdered in an IRA ambush minutes after leaving a meeting at Dundalk Garda station.
Three former Garda sergeants have been named by the tribunal – Owen Corrigan, Leo Colton and Finbarr Hickey. All three deny any collusion.
Yesterday’s evidence mentioned Mr Hickey with regard to Garda officers passing information to the IRA.
A second document, dated June 2009, further maintained that Mr Hickey “was responsible for the passing of information to PIRA, which resulted in the murder of Chief Superintendent (Harry) Breen and Superintendent (Bob) Buchanan”. However, the document also notes that the informer who made this claim about Mr Hickey later denied giving the information.
Mr Hickey – who was jailed for the production of false passports – denies the allegation.
The first intelligence document read to the tribunal by Mr McComb yesterday also said the PIRA’s intention had been to kidnap Mr Breen and Mr Buchanan but that there had been a major dispute among those directly involved as to how the attack was to be conducted.
Last week, the tribunal heard allegations that Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness was the northern commander of the IRA and that he had ordered the capture and torture of Mr Breen and Mr Buchanan.
Mr McGuinness has denied the allegations and said he is prepared to give evidence to the tribunal, but insisted that he is not aware of any information which would be of use to the tribunal.
The Smithwick Tribunal is dogged by missing documentation and witnesses who won’t give evidence, says Alan Murray
Belfast Telegraph
1 May 2012
Asked why he didn’t advise RUC commanders along the border of the existence of a 1985 intelligence report linking a Dundalk garda with the IRA, a former Special Branch officer told the Smithwick Tribunal in Dublin that he was not allowed to.
Intelligence had to be forwarded to Special Branch HQ at Castlereagh in Belfast and then disseminated from there – as deemed operationally necessary.
Even if one of the intended recipients occupied an office next to his own in Newry, he was not permitted to pass on the information, the witness said.
The SB50 Special Branch document that ‘Witness X’ referred to is the only copy of perhaps five originally created mentioning the retired garda and his alleged improper association with the IRA.
It is the only relevant RUC document turned up in a trawl of the PSNI’s archive which relates directly to the allegations against gardai based in Dundalk.
‘Witness 82′ – a retired Army Major – was able to tell the Smithwick Tribunal that he did obtain intelligence material following the murders of Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan in March 1989, but none of the military intelligence source reports (MISRs) has been provided to the inquiry.
The witness did confirm the agent he directly handled, ‘Stakeknife’, described by a former General Officer Commanding as the “best” Army agent ever recruited here, did provide information after the attack – presumably about those involved – but he could not recall the details.
Given the gravity of the incident and the IRA manpower involved in the ambushing of Breen and Buchanan, it is little short of astonishing that no SB50s, or MISRs, compiled in the aftermath of the incident have ever been presented to Judge Peter Smithwick.
Their absence, deliberately intended or otherwise, illustrates the difficult task the judge faces when he prepares to write his report.
The two Special Branch officers who did compile the one SB50 that came to Smithwick – about the retired Dundalk garda – have so far refused to give evidence to the tribunal, falling into the category of a number of former RUC officers who could have helped, but didn’t.
By the time of the Breen and Buchanan murders, the SB50 that Witness X forwarded to Special Branch HQ at Castlereagh four years earlier had, presumably, been filed under ‘no action to be taken’.
It was certainly not something either the London or Dublin governments, or their respective police forces, wanted to see surface in the days following the ambush, when all talk of possible collusion was dismissed out-of-hand by officials.
Witness X himself said that he was not greatly concerned about the SB50 that landed on his desk and he continued to work with the suspect Garda officer.
Any probings of the heavily redacted document were resisted by counsel for the PSNI and all that was divulged about the assessment of the intelligence provided was that it was ‘medium-grade’.
Witness X said he felt the document was something he did not have “to give much attention to”, partly because he was dealing with many terrorist incidents around the south Armagh border area on a daily basis.
Given the number of incidents, you might have thought the SB50′s contents would have been of major importance to RUC commanders working along the border.
The retired officer said that he became wary of travelling to Dundalk Garda station. Like murdered Superintendent Bob Buchanan, Witness X said that it had been his practice to travel to Dundalk in his own car, mostly alone, but sometimes with a second RUC officer.
This was a senior RUC officer’s standard operating procedure. And yet, incredibly, in the four years from the creation of the SB50 to the time of his murder, it wasn’t felt necessary to advise Superintendent Buchanan of its existence, or its contents.
But ex-RUC man tells tribunal he wasn’t alarmed by revelation
Belfast Telegraph
28 Apr 2012
A former Special Branch officer has told the Smithwick Tribunal that he was not greatly concerned about an intelligence report sent to him which indicated that a Garda Sergeant was “helping out the IRA”.
The retired Detective Chief Inspector told the Tribunal that he received an SB50 form in June 1985 and sent it to police headquarters in Belfast marked “no downward dissemination”.
The witness who was referred to only as ‘Officer X’ said that the report had been compiled by two Special Branch officers working in the Newry area and had come from a “medium grade” source.
The SB50 form which the Tribunal has been seeking from the PSNI’s archive for years, stated “Owen Corrigan, a Sergeant in Garda Special Branch in Dundalk, is helping out the IRA.”
It continued: “Corrigan is keeping both the boys and the organisation well-informed and, he lets the boys know what the security forces in the North are doing when he can”.
The heavily redacted document pointed out that at the time there was “a Sergeant Owen Corrigan attached to the Garda Special Branch stationed in Dundalk” and recommended that Corrigan’s name be recorded on a ‘White slip’, a document used to indicate the first report of a person’s alleged involvement with any subversive organisation.
The retired officer said that as far as he was aware the SB50 form brought to the Tribunal this week was the only official document ever created, that he was aware of, mentioning alleged collusion between a Garda and the IRA.
But the officer who served in Special Branch in the Newry area between 1981 and 1985 said that he was not overly concerned about dealing with Garda Corrigan.
Witness X said he forwarded the report to Police Headquarters in Belfast but felt at the time it was something that he did not have “to give too much attention to”.
He said he continued to personally meet with Detective Sergeant Corrigan at Dundalk Garda Station after he processed the SB50 warning to Police Headquarters and on one occasion was advised not to return to visit the Garda officer at Dundalk.
”There was one particular evening that I went to Dundalk to see Detective Sergeant Corrigan about matters concerning the border area, and, whenever we had finished our business, he advised me to wait until he checked to see if the coast was clear for me to leave.
“He went down into the entrance area of the station, came back up, and advised me to hang on a while because there was certain people in from Belfast that would probably know me, and I waited until they had left the building.
“Then — whenever he came back, he said, I don’t think it would be wise for you to be coming back to this place again. If we have anything to discuss in future, we will meet either up north or further south, Ardee, Collon, Drogheda, just don’t come back to this place again”, Witness X said.
The retired officer said that thereafter he was wary of travelling to Dundalk Garda station. Like murdered Superintendent Bob Buchanan, Witness X said that it had been his practice to travel to Dundalk in his own car, mostly alone but sometimes with another RUC officer.
Superintendent Bob Buchanan and Chief Superintendent Harry Breen were murdered by the IRA in March 1989 almost four years after the SB50 intelligence report was passed to Special Branch Headquarters in Belfast.
Background
The Smithwick Tribunal was set up to investigate the murders of Superintendent Bob Buchanan and Chief Superintendent Harry Breen, two of the most senior RUC members to be murdered during The Troubles. They were ambushed after a meeting at Dundalk Garda Station in 1989. Chief Supt Breen and his driver Supt Buchanan left their Newry headquarters for what they thought was a routine meeting. But the pair never returned. Later in the day, as they drove back across the border near Jonesborough, Co Armagh, the two senior RUC officers were ambushed in an IRA gun attack.
By Noel McAdam
Belfast Telegraph
27 April 2012
First Minister Peter Robinson has suggested Martin McGuinness should give evidence to the Smithwick Tribunal over allegations he ordered ‘human bomb’ attacks during the Troubles.
The DUP leader said that given Sinn Fein demands for an international Truth Commission it would be a “good first step” if his Stormont counterpart went to the Dublin inquiry into alleged Garda collusion with the IRA.
But he added the evidence would only have political implications for the power-sharing administration if it could be held up in a court. Mr Robinson also admitted he has not discussed the barrage of allegations with the Deputy First Minister.
Ex-spy Ian Hurst told the tribunal earlier this week that Mr McGuinness, Sinn Fein’s deputy leader, authorised human bomb attacks.
In an interview with UTV, Mr Robinson said: “If people have committed crimes then they’re answerable, no matter what their position, and if there’s evidence and it’s brought forward then it’s up to due process to determine.”
TIM O’BRIEN
Irish Times
24 Apr 2012
NORTHERN IRELAND Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness authorised the killings of two RUC officers in March 1989, it was claimed at the Smithwick Tribunal yesterday.
Former British intelligence officer Ian Hurst – otherwise known as Martin Ingram – claimed the intention of the IRA operation in which the two RUC officers were killed, was to abduct them, interrogate them, remove papers they were expected to be carrying and to ultimately execute them.
Chief Supt Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan were killed in an IRA ambush in south Armagh in March 1989, minutes after leaving a meeting in Dundalk Garda station in Co Louth. They were the most senior RUC officers to be killed in the Troubles.
The tribunal is inquiring into suggestions that members of the Garda in Dundalk colluded with the IRA in the killings.
Mr Hurst who has been given permission by the British Ministry of Defence to give evidence to the tribunal, asserted that the killings involved up to 60 IRA volunteers and supporters and the operation “was authorised at [the IRA’s] Northern command. Mr McGuinness was involved”.
He also said Mr McGuinness was “OC Northern command”, the senior IRA officer in Northern Ireland at the time.
He said he was given this information by his senior officer, known only as “Witness 82”, whose evidence is expected to also be read into the record this week.
Mr Hurst was a member of the British army’s intelligence service force research unit for three years from 1982, before he was transferred to the Ministry of Defence Middle East desk in London. While in the research unit he said he was aware of up to 10 military intelligence source reports which named Det Sgt Owen Corrigan of Dundalk Garda station as a man who had provided information to the IRA.
Some of this information was useful in organising the killings, according to the reports, he told the tribunal.
Mr Hurst also named former Sgt Leo Colton as another officer in Dundalk who was known to pass information to the IRA. He said both gardaí were described in intelligence reports as “rogue” gardaí.
He said Dundalk was referred to in Northern intelligence services as “Dodge City” and a “rat-infested hole” as it was a place where on-the-run republicans went for rest and recuperation. Others were Bundoran and Ballyshannon he said. Dundalk was also the place where the IRA’s internal security unit was based, he said.
Mr Hurst said he was aware of a call to his army unit late one evening from an RUC police officer who said he had in custody an “Alfredo Scappaticci” who had been involved in a drink-driving incident. Mr Hurst said Scappaticci was seeking the protection of the intelligence services, and used a code corresponding to the codename “Stakeknife”. He also said his superior, Witness 82, had subsequently confirmed that Stakeknife and Scappaticci were one and the same.
Mr Hurst asserted that information provided by Mr Corrigan to the IRA had been channelled through Scappaticci, who in turn channelled it to British intelligence through his own handler Witness 82. “Scappaticci was effectively the conduit for information, in other words as the handler of Mr Corrigan.”
Sinn Féin in a statement yesterday evening said: “Martin McGuinness totally rejects these allegations.”
A party spokesman questioned the bona fides of Mr Hurst. “Judge Smithwick has already been critical of the quality and nature of the evidence provided to his tribunal by the British state,” he said.
“This individual who uses a variety of names including Martin Ingram has no credibility. By his own admission he is part of a British security apparatus which played a very negative and malign role in the conflict, including widespread involvement in collusion,” he added.
News Letter
25 April 2012
UNIONISTS yesterday united in calling on Martin McGuinness to own up to what he did while in the IRA.
However, an attempt by TUV leader Jim Allister to question First Minister Peter Robinson on the floor of the Assembly about his view of the allegations was quickly halted by Sinn Fein MLA Francie Molloy.
Mr Molloy — who was voted into the new position of “principal deputy speaker” by the DUP and Sinn Fein last year — was in the Speaker’s chair for the half-hour of First Minister’s Questions.
Although the Smithwick Tribunal claims only referred to the surname of the deputy first minister, unionists quickly demanded explanations.
Mr Allister tried to raise the allegations as a supplementary question to one about the social investment fund, arguing they were much more serious than what was being discussed. However, Mr Molloy refused to allow the question because it was “not relevant” to business at that point.
Later, in a statement released by the DUP, East Derry MP Gregory Campbell listed a series of facts about Mr McGuinness’ links to the IRA.
Mr Campbell said that in March he asked Mr McGuinness to reveal the “activities he was involved in” and that the Smithwick evidence was “yet another reason why he must do so”.
Mr Campbell said: “If Mr McGuinness wants to deal with the past, he should have no problem in owning up to his activities so as to help bring closure for the victims of those crimes. So far, he and others in Sinn Fein have failed to do so.”
Mr Campbell added: “While we’re all committed to moving Northern Ireland forward, the deputy first minister should come clean on his involvement in the past.”
Ulster Unionist leader Mike Nesbitt said: “This evidence raises a number of very serious questions which need to be answered today by the deputy first minister. He owes it to the families of the murdered officers and the wider public to give full and honest disclosure of his knowledge of the murders.”
Mr Allister said that in “any normal democracy” the allegation from a judicial tribunal that the deputy first minister had authorised murders “would provoke immediate debate in the local legislature and demands for removal from office of such a person”.
He added: “Yet today, though McGuinness was named at the Smithwick Tribunal as having authorised the murder plot in which senior police officers Breen and Buchanan died, Stormont slumbers on immune from the obvious implications.”
Mr Allister said those “who installed the provo commander in office sit in embarrassed silence when I attempt to raise the issue”.
The North Antrim MLA said that it was “most serious evidence” as it dealt with a period when Mr McGuinness claimed to have left the IRA.
He said: “Instead of him now being arrested and questioned, as he ought to be, his protected status prevails, because the so-called process is now more important than truth or justice.”
RTÉ
25 Apr 2012
British intelligence services were operating all over Ireland and were receiving information from politicians, as well as members of the gardaí, the army and customs service, the Smithwick Tribunal has been told.
The claims were made by former British Army intelligence officer Ian Hurst during interviews with senior gardaí and in his own direct evidence.
The tribunal, which is investigating claims of collusion in the killing of two RUC officers in March 1989, heard today from retired Chief Supt Basil Walsh.
He said he met Mr Hurst twice in 2000 at his home in Carrick-on-Suir and in Waterford Garda Station.
During those meetings, Mr Hurst mentioned that a number of gardaí were passing information to the British intelligence services.
Mr Hurst said he had recruited a member of a garda task force in Donegal, who would come to Ballymena to pass on information, for which he would be paid £50 or £60.
He also said he was aware of a garda and a Senator talking to MI5.
However, the witness said Mr Hurst refused to name any of the individuals involved.
When the reading of Mr Hurst’s direct evidence to the tribunal resumed, it emerged that he said British military intelligence services had members of the Irish Army, as well as many gardaí and members of the customs service, passing information to them.
They also had sources in the RUC and customs service in Northern Ireland.
The witness served in the secretive Force Research Unit, the intelligence wing of the British Army in the North.
He said they worked on an all-Ireland basis and had bases in Sligo and Donegal.
Mr Hurst is subject to British Ministry of Defence restrictions as a result of which his evidence was heard behind closed doors last week and is now being read into the record following the removal of parts of his evidence.
Mr Hurst also reiterated his allegations against Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness.
He said that Mr McGuinness did not leave the IRA in the early 1970s as he claimed.
Mr McGuinness controlled Northern Command for most of the time and was also on the IRA Army Council and had responsibility for controlling people such as Freddie Scappaticci.
Northern Command would have had to sanction operations such as the use of human bombs and the ambush in which Chief Supt Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan died and which is being investigated by the tribunal.
It has been alleged that Mr Scappaticci was the deputy head of the IRA’s internal security unit and the most important British Army agent in the organisation.
Mr Scappaticci and Mr McGuinness both deny the allegations.
Earlier, retired Chief Supt Walsh said he was aware of Mr Scappaticci and of his involvement in the IRA.
However, he disputed several claims made by Mr Hurst in his evidence.
He said there was no mention of Owen Corrigan during their meetings. Mr Corrigan is one of three gardaí being investigated by the tribunal and he denies the claims that he passed information to the IRA.
The witness also denied saying that gardaí had tried to remove Mr Corrigan but could not because of political pressure.
Former Chief Supt Walsh also said he could not have been present at a third meeting that Mr Hurst said he was because he had retired from the gardaí at that time.
BBC
25 Apr 2012
Sinn Fein rejected the allegations against Mr McGuinness
Martin McGuinness was involved in authorising “human bomb” attacks, an ex-intelligence officer has told the Smithwick Tribunal.
Ian Hurst – also known as Martin Ingram – told the tribunal that contrary to Mr McGuinness’ claims, he did not leave the IRA in the 1970s.
More evidence given in private last week has been read into the tribunal.
Similar allegations which emerged on Tuesday were rejected by Mr McGuinness.
A Sinn Fein spokesman said Mr Hurst’s claims were “more lies from an individual with a highly dubious track record”.
The tribunal was established in 2005 to investigate allegations of Garda collusion in the murders of RUC Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and RUC Superintendent Robert Buchanan.
‘Officer commanding’
According to evidence read at the tribunal on Wednesday, Mr Hurst claimed Mr McGuinness had still been officer commanding of the IRA’s northern command for “the vast majority of the time”.
Under cross-examination, Mr Hurst reiterated his belief that the murders of Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan by the South Armagh brigade of the IRA would have to have been authorised by the IRA’s Northern Command, becuase they would have needed “political cover”.
He told the tribunal that “human bombs (were) also authorised by Martin McGuinness… he controls northern command for the vast majority of the time.
“Contrary to what he’d have you believe that he left the IRA in the 70s, it’s not true. He was a member of northern command and the Provisional IRA Council responsible for controlling people like Mr Scappaticci,” he said.
Mr Hurst also claimed that Freddie Scappaticci was the Army agent within the IRA known as Stakeknife.
He said Mr Scappaticci may have been aware of the plan to kill the RUC officers in advance, but he had no evidence of this.
The tribunal also heard that British intelligence services collected information on a 32-county basis, and had sources in the Republic ranging from a senator to revenue and customs officials and members of the Irish army and gardai.
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