No agents in IRA gang, witness tells tribunal

THE PUBLIC and media were excluded from the Smithwick Tribunal yesterday after a former RUC intelligence officer said no agents of Northern Ireland were involved in an IRA gang which carried out the 1989 killing of two RUC officers.

The tribunal went into private session at the request of lawyer for the PSNI Mark Robinson, after the former intelligence officer identified only as Witness 62, said no agents were involved in the IRA brigade “at that time”.

Chief Supt Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan were killed in an IRA ambush minutes after they left a meeting in Dundalk Garda station in March 1989. Chief Supt Breen was the highest ranking RUC officer killed during the Troubles.

Witness 62 told the tribunal the north Louth/south Dromintee brigade of the IRA were responsible for the murder of the RUC men. He said the men were among up to 80 people killed by the brigade during the Troubles.

Answering questions on the intelligence services’ contemporaneous knowledge of the killings, Witness 62 told Dermott McGuinness SC, for the Garda, that “no agents of the State – or anyone who was recruited at the time – was involved in the shooting” of the two RUC officers.

At this point the media and public were excluded.

Earlier the witness had told the tribunal he was certain the north Louth/south Dromintee brigade of the Provisional IRA was commanded by Seán Gerard Hughes of south Armagh. He told Mary Laverty SC, for the tribunal, the IRA unit was responsible for the killings of Lord Justice Gibson in April 1987, and the Hanna family, who were allegedly killed in a case of mistaken identity in 1998. He said operations were carried out with the occasional assistance of members of the IRA from Crossmaglen and operations would have had to have been sanctioned by the army council of the IRA.

Also among the deaths he attributed to the IRA unit were those of four RUC officers at Killeen on the main road between Newry and Dundalk and another four RUC officers at Forkhill just inside Northern Ireland. “At one time I could have named almost 80 deaths,” he told the tribunal.

Referring to his certainty of the people involved he said British security services had classified IRA volunteers into three groups, A, B, and C. He said members of the C group would have thought they were fully fledged activists but would only have played minor roles such as serving as a driver or lookout.

He said the most senior would have been group A which he alleged was headed by Mr Hughes. He said Mr Hughes was later appointed to the army council of the Provisional IRA.

Asked about the possible involvement of well known republican Thomas “Slab” Murphy, the witness said he believed Mr Murphy was “patriarch” or chief of staff of the IRA army council at the time.

He said that after the killings of the two RUC officers he had heard the name of former Det Sgt Owen Corrigan as a possible IRA source. But he agreed with counsel for Mr Corrigan that he had not seen any intelligence to this effect.