Killer Gun Supplied By Police Agent: Wright Inquiry

The public inquiry into the prison murder of LVF leader, Billy Wright has been receiving the wrong information from the police.

At a brief public hearing in Banbridge on Monday, inquiry chairman Lord MacLean said the supply of information on Special Branch agents went "badly awry" and overall, it was either "completely wrong or inaccurate information (that) had been supplied to the inquiry".

The disclosure was made in a 75-page statement on missing evidence issued by the inquiry, which is investigating whether or not state agencies colluded with the loyalist leader's killers.

Among the details is that the man suspected of smuggling a gun into prison for Billy Wright's killer was in fact an RUC Special Branch agent.

This turned up in the only surviving prison security file on any of the three INLA men who murdered Wright - but police still say they can find no records connecting the RUC agent with the gun.

Coincidentally, the 'agent' who smuggled the killer weapon to Wright's murderer, Christopher 'Crip' McWilliams, is also now dead.

He is not the only witness to be now deceased. An additional problem for the inquiry was the apparent prison suicide last year of John Kenneway, another one of Wright's killers. He died before he could be interviewed by the inquiry.

The inquiry's statement also gave details of key intelligence that the PSNI has been unable to provide about the murder in the Maze Prison in 1997 and indicated that material provided by other intelligence agencies suggests that PSNI documents should exist.

However, the inquiry panel has previously said that they have had problems obtaining material from every security agency connected with Wright's death.

The Prison Service was particularly criticised for losing or destroying thousands of documents, including security files from the Maze.

The link between 'Crip' McWilliams, the unnamed Special Branch agent and the smuggled gun turned up in the only security file to survive the Prison Service's destruction - one accidentally discovered by the Wright Inquiry team among other material.

The file on third killer, John Glennon included "a handwritten entry to the effect that a gun had previously been smuggled into prison for Christoper McWilliams by an ex-Maghaberry prisoner."

McWilliams managed to get guns inside prison twice within eight months - the first time to take a prison officer hostage in Maghaberry and then to murder Wright in the Maze.

The statement added: "The ex-prisoner was, at the time of the hostage incident and the time of Billy Wright's murder, an RUC SB (Special Branch) informant."

But the inquiry says the PSNI says they can find no records connecting the man to the smuggling incident.

Also missing are records of police surveillance of the top INLA leaders who plotted Wright's murder, and RUC risk assessments on Wright in the weeks before he was gunned down.

The inquiry says other intelligence is missing on the decision to transfer Wright to the Maze from Maghaberry, (which allowed the opportunity for his killers to strike) the transfer of Wright's killers to the same H Block, the INLA threat against Wright and his murder.

The statement also reveals that records of payments to RUC agents have been destroyed.

See: Wright Inquiry Data On Stolen Computer.

(BMcC)