PSNI kept key documents from Smithwick

FIVE KEY intelligence documents were withheld from the Smithwick Tribunal by the PSNI, the force acknowledged yesterday.

The revelation that the PSNI had withheld the documents was described as a matter of “great concern” by lawyers for families of two RUC officers who were murdered by the IRA, allegedly with assistance from an IRA mole in Dundalk Garda station.

Speaking outside the tribunal, Ernie Waterworth, of McCartan Turkington Breen Solicitors of Belfast, said the issue was one of “great concern” for his clients the family of the late Supt Bob Buchanan. Mr Buchanan was killed in an IRA ambush alongside fellow officer Chief Supt Harry Breen as they returned from a meeting in Dundalk Garda station in 1989.

Mr Waterworth said the revelation of previously undisclosed documents raised questions about what other information the PSNI had which might cast light on the tribunal’s inquiry into the murders.

The tribunal chaired by Judge Peter Smithwick is investigating allegations that a member or members of An Garda Síochána colluded with the IRA in targeting the officers.

John McBurney, solicitor for the Breen family, said “the newly introduced intelligence” raised “many concerns and opens up additional lines of enquiry at a very late stage indeed”. He said there was now “a truly bewildering and alarming array of collusion pointers”.

The comments were made following a tribunal session in which PSNI Det Chief Supt Roy McComb revealed the PSNI had five previously undisclosed documents which he said were relevant to the tribunal’s work.

Mr McComb provided summaries of the five intelligence documents, the originals of which he said were being withheld for reasons of national security.

Four of the five summaries related to intelligence reports that a garda in Dundalk passed information to the IRA. The fifth said a Dundalk garda named as Jim Lane had repeatedly warned of inappropriate relationships between members of the IRA and Dundalk sergeants Leo Colton, Finbarr Hickey and Det Sgt Owen Corrigan.

While the first two documents made reference to “a detective” member of the Garda in Dundalk who was said to be passing information to the IRA, Mr McComb’s summary said the detective officer was “not publicly associated with the Smithwick Tribunal”.

Jim O’Callaghan SC, for Owen Corrigan, said this was “exculpatory” information about his client’s alleged involvement in the murders of Mr Breen and Mr Buchanan, and the PSNI had decided, at least initially, not to share it.

Mr O’Callaghan asked Mr McComb if he saw “the unfairness to my client in you not giving this information to the tribunal at a much earlier stage?”

Mr McComb replied: “I can understand your point, yes.”

Asked if he was prepared to apologise to Mr Corrigan “in light of the unfairness that the PSNI have engaged in”, Mr McComb replied: “A decision was taken to not release this intelligence.” He added that he was “not in a position to tell you who made that decision, the circumstances or the context in which that or those decisions were taken. And I’d be speculating beyond that.”