A former Conservative minister has been interviewed by detectives investigating claims that the army colluded with loyalist paramilitary assassins to murder the Belfast solicitor Mr Patrick Finucane.
Officers from Scotland Yard saw the former junior Home Office minister, Mr Douglas Hogg, to discuss what he knew about Mr Finucane, who was shot 14 times in front of his wife and children by Ulster Defence Association gunmen in 1989.
Three weeks before Mr Finucane was killed, Mr Hogg told the House of Commons there were a number of lawyers in Northern Ireland "unduly sympathetic to the IRA".
Mr Finucane had represented republicans.
It is understood Mr Hogg adamantly denied to detectives knowing anything about the UDA plot to shoot Mr Finucane, though he conceded he had been briefed by the RUC about the activities of solicitors in Belfast who allegedly had republican sympathies.
It is thought he also denied any knowledge of the Force Research Unit (FRU), the covert division of the army which was responsible for recruiting and handling informers, and is alleged to have helped loyalists target senior republicans. He maintained that the timing of the statement was unfortunate, nothing else.
Mr Hogg was not arrested or questioned under caution. It is not thought he will be seen again.
His statement, however, will be included in a report to be presented by Sir John Stevens, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, later this year.
The commissioner is leading the inquiry which, if published, could give the most detailed account yet of the links between terrorist gunmen, police officers and soldiers.
Mr Hogg's statement to the Commons caused a furore at the time. The SDLP MP Mr Seamus Mallon immediately intervened, saying: "It would be `on the minister's head . . . if an assassin's bullet did what his words had done'."
As a junior minister, Mr Hogg would have been privy to briefings from the RUC and MI5. It is now known that an army agent, Mr Brian Nelson, who infiltrated the UDA told his handlers in the FRU about the assassination plot two months before he was killed.
Scotland Yard refused to discuss the inquiry yesterday. Mr Hogg was unavailable for comment.