Sacrificed!
By Sunday Life reporter
25 June 2006
A former Army officer claims that no fewer than THREE different Special Branch agents took part in a series of IRA attacks which claimed the lives of seven soldiers in less than a year.
The officer also claims security chiefs continued to use the agents to gather intelligence after the south Down attacks in spite of knowing they had been involved in murder.
The three agents were all members of the IRA’s south Down unit based in the Newry area during the 1980s and 1990s.
All three had a long history of involvement in terrorism stretching back several years.
They were recruited after intelligence handlers identified them as “suitable” for an approach.
None of the men knew the others were working for Special Branch as they planned and took part in IRA operations.
It has been claimed that the agents were involved - either individually or collectively - in:
–An explosion that killed three members of the Parachute Regiment near Mayobridge, Co Down, in November 1989;
–a landmine attack that claimed the lives four UDR men outside Downpatrick in April 1990, and;
–The ‘human bomb’ attack on an Army checkpoint near Newry that killed RIR soldier Cyril Smith in October 1990.
The officer said that at least one agent was known to have been involved in all three attacks.
He told Sunday Life: “(RUC) Special Branch was running these men ‘hands-on’.
“They knew the IRA was planning these attacks - the agents were providing police with that information.
“Yet the attacks were allowed to proceed and seven soldiers died needlessly.”
The former officer said the Downpatrick and Mayobridge landmines had been built by a top IRA bomb-maker later linked to the 1998 Omagh atrocity. Another leading Provisional detonated both devices.
Neither man has ever been charged in relation to any of the attacks.
The former officer said information about the agents had come to light during Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan’s investigation into the murder of WPC Colleen McMurray.
He added: “Relatives of the dead soldiers have a right to know why their loved-ones were callously sacrificed.
“They should be asking the Police Ombudsman to investigate these deaths.”
A spokesman for the Police Ombudsman’s office said it had not received a complaint about Special Branch agents being involved in the soldiers’ deaths.
