Fresh calls have been made for an international inquiry into the murder of journalist Martin O’Hagan amid new allegations of police failings in the investigation.
Names of people claimed to have been involved in the September 2001 killing in Lurgan, Co Armagh, were given to two detectives, but they did not act on the information, according to a BBC NI Spotlight probe, aired on Tuesday night.
It is alleged the information was passed to police within 48 hours of the Loyalist Volunteer Force murder.
Relying on evidence by an “insider”, referred to as Witness A, the BBC reported an accomplice involved in helping dispose of the getaway car passed the evidence to investigators.
Despite this, no arrests were made, nor was a yard in Lurgan, where he helped the murder gang get rid of the car, searched.
Father of three O’Hagan, whose work exposed loyalist paramilitaries, was shot dead as he walked home from a night out with his wife. He was the only journalist to have been murdered during the Troubles.
No-one has ever been convicted of his murder.
Seamus Dooley, assistant general secretary and Irish secretary of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), said the Spotlight revelations came as no surprise to the union.
“The NUJ has been calling for an independent international investigation into Martin’s murder for some time,” he said.
“We have long believed that there was collusion and there is a very strong belief that there are people out there who know who killed Martin, and that they are being protected because of their association with security sources.”
Dooley renewed NUJ calls for an inquiry into the murder by an international independent panel of experts.
“The latest revelations merely confirm our belief that there is a nasty smell of the entire episode,” he said.
“It is deeply disturbing, as with many unsolved murders in Northern Ireland, that there has been no prosecution over Martin’s killing.
“It remains a stain on Northern Ireland, and a stain on the entire history of media freedom in Ireland.
“We would have no confidence in anything other than an external international panel investigating the murder at this stage.”
The PSNI said it would not comment ahead of the airing of the Spotlight programme, and while an investigation by the North’s Police Ombudsman into the killing and legal proceedings were ongoing.
Patrick Corrigan, of Amnesty International, said the new information was “disturbing”.
“It is incredible that, within 48 hours of Martin O’Hagan’s murder, the police were apparently provided with names, addresses and the various roles of the killers, yet failed to act,” he said.
“To this day, no-one has been held accountable. His killers literally got away with murder.”
Corrigan said it has long been suspected that those who ordered O’Hagan’s murder were “paid police informants linked to an illegal paramilitary group”.
“One might imagine these things only happen in the likes of Russia,” he added.
“But Martin O’Hagan was murdered in ‘peacetime’ Northern Ireland, where - two decades after his murder - journalists continue to work in a climate of fear amidst regular death threats from such armed groups.
“Amnesty International has long-held concerns about this case - it was a brutal murder, but also an attack on press freedom.
“Amnesty supports calls by the National Union of Journalists for a fresh investigation into this murder.”