A FEW security force members in Northern Ireland gravely abused their
positions of trust by passing information to loyalist paramilitaries,
according to a top-level police report.
Mr John Stevens, the deputy chief constable of Cambridgeshire, and a
team of hand-picked English detectives spent eight months investigating
allegations of links between members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary,
Army, and Ulster Defence Regiment, and loyalist terrorists.
In his report, published yesterday, Mr Stevens said: ''I have been
able to draw firm conclusions that members of the security forces have
passed information to paramilitaries.''
He made 83 published recommendations for tightening and improving the
handling of intelligence information and investigation of terrorism.
But he added: ''It must be acknowledged in the present climate that
leakages of information from the security forces may never be completely
eliminated.''
He said if the recommendations for the police, Army, and other
organisations were introduced, ''then there is every hope that future
collusion between the security forces and paramilitary groups will be
eradicated''.
He added those involved were ''restricted to a small number of
individuals, who have gravely abused their positions of trust''.
He said there was no orchestrated campaign of leaks. He found no
evidence to support claims of an RUC ''inner circle'' working with
terrorists.
The published report was a summary of a fuller version which Mr
Stevens sent to RUC chief constable Hugh Annesley last month.
Some details and recommendations were kept secret for security
reasons. The report said no evidence had been found to substantiate any
charges against RUC members.
But at a Belfast news conference, Mr Stevens said: ''There are some
files which will be sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions in
relation to two RUC officers.''
It was learned later that two are full-time members of the RUC
Reserve.
The report said, however, that evidence and information had been
obtained ''which shows that certain members of the Ulster Defence
Regiment have been involved in collusion with loyalist paramilitaries.
''It would be wrong to conclude that there is a significant proportion
of Ulster Defence Regiment soldiers who are involved with
paramilitaries. This is not the case.''
A total of 94 people had been arrested during the inquiry, which began
last September.
Fifty-nine had been charged or reported for alleged offences under the
Prevention of Terrorism, Official Secrets and Firearms Acts.
Responding to the report, Mr Annesley said 31 recommendations had been
directed at the RUC.
Much had already been done to implement the recommendations dealing
with the production and care of terrorist recognition material, and
other recommendations would be considered.
But he opposed the main issue of the RUC having a special
anti-terrorist unit. ''If we had an anti-terrorist unit we would have to
put 70% of the CID into it,'' he said. Mr
Annesley, who has been head of the RUC for one year, said he would not
stand for wrongdoing in the force.
But no-one had been charged and the RUC was entitled to the same
standard of justice as anyone else.
The IRA's political wing, Sinn Fein, called the report a whitewash and
cover-up. It claimed there was clear evidence that a significant group
of RUC members had been consistently passing information to loyalist
death squads.
Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Brooke insisted in the Commons that
he had the fullest confidence in the UDR. He told MPs: ''I see nothing
in the findings to lessen my conviction that the the UDR plays a vital
and valued part in the Army's support for the police-led anti-terrorist
effort. I am convinced that the regiment is fundamentally sound.''
The deputy leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, East Belfast MP
Peter Robinson, called the report a ''cynical political exercise brought
out to appease nationalists.''
Mr Seamus Mallon, MP for Newry and Mourne and SDLP deputy leader, said
he was surprised no member of the RUC had been charged.
But Mr Gordon Mawhinney, deputy leader of the Alliance Party, said the
RUC had emerged with great credit.
The Northern Ireland Police Federation welcomed the report, saying it
confirmed their belief that leaks were not widespread or
institutionalised.
A UDR spokesman said the regiment would not comment.
Mr Stevens was called into Northern Ireland last September by Mr
Annesley after the outlawed Ulster Freedom Fighters, a cover name used
by the UDA, claimed to have murdered Roman Catholic Loughlin Maginn at
his home in Rathfriland, County Down, having targeted him as a
republican suspect through leaked police documents.
A short time later files were found to have gone missing from the RUC
station in Dunmurry on the outskirts of Belfast.
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