Spy Twist In RUC Chiefs' Murder Inquiry

A Tribunal of Inquiry in the Irish Republic will resume hearing the evidence on the IRA border murders of RUC Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan this autumn.

Evidence about the IRA's plan to murder the two senior RUC officers in south Armagh 20 years ago will be heard in public in October and it has now emerged that they may also hold sittings in Belfast if needed.

It will sit in Blackhall Place in Dublin and is expected to be able to hear from a former British Army intelligence officer.

The spy, and former soldier known as 'Martin Ingram' has been subject to court committal proceedings in England for over two years in an action brought by the Ministry of Defence.

However, before then he had been interviewed by two senior Garda officers about the alleged involvement of a member of the Garda with one of the most infamous British agents inside the IRA, Freddie Scappaticci.

The IRA double agent is thought to have been closely involved, and now, the Tribunal headed by former District Court Judge Peter Smithwick, is hoping to be able to interview the former army officer because the legal proceedings hanging over him may be lifted.

They forbid Ingram from making any comment about his knowledge of secret British Army operations along the border with the threat of imprisonment if he does.

However, former Attorney General Baroness Scotland was said to have been "extremely helpful" to the Tribunal before the General Election and significant progress has since been made in paving the way for Ingram to give evidence.

Mr Ingram has claimed that the Army indirectly controlled a rogue Garda officer because Freddie Scappaticci acted as his IRA 'handler' even though Scappaticci worked for the highly Army secret Force Research Unit that Ingram was attached to in Northern Ireland.

Chief Superintendent Harry Breen was shot dead near Jonesborough in south Armagh in 1989, along with his colleague Superintendent Bob Buchanan.

The policemen were ambushed on the border after returning in an unmarked car from a meeting with the Irish police in Dundalk.

There have been suspicions that a police officer in the Republic may have tipped off the IRA about their movements.

The original inquiry began taking evidence over four years ago and was told by a lawyer representing former Garda Special Branch officer Owen Corrigan that MP Jeffrey Donaldson used House of Commons privilege, to name him as having passed on information to the Provisional IRA that led to the killings.

(BMcC/GK)