SAOIRSE32

Sunday Life
Sunday, January 06, 2008

The revelation that the UDA’s ruling ‘inner council’ has been infiltrated by a security forces informant may rock the terror gang’s members.

But it is far from the first time the loyalist killing machine has had agents in key positions.

In the early 1980s leading racketeer Jim Craig was passing on UDA secrets not just to the RUC, but also the IRA, in order to feather his nest. He was gunned down by his former comrades just months after setting up UDA leader John McMichael to be murdered in an IRA car bomb attack in 1987. But the most notorious loyalist informer was FRU agent Brian Nelson, who was allowed to plot dozens of terrorist attacks before his involvement in the 1989 murder of solicitor Pat Finucane triggered the Stevens inquiry.

A number of other leading UDA figures involved in the Finucane murder have also been named as informants, including the terror group’s quartermaster William Stobie - who was later murdered by his former ‘comrades’.

Ken Barrett, the only man to be jailed for the murder, was later exposed as an RUC informant and Tommy ‘Tucker’ Lyttle was branded a tout after his death.

It was not just the UDA that was infiltrated by the security forces. A number of very prominent UVF figures are believed to be informants. Mount Vernon UVF leader Mark Haddock was exposed as a double agent who had been involved in a string of murders.

The republican movement has also been littered with informants, including Freddie ‘Stakeknife’ Scappaticci, Eamon Collins, Martin McGartland and murdered Sinn Fein official Denis Donaldson.

Inner council ‘brigadier’ exposed as top agent for security services

By Brian Rowan
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Sunday Life

One of the UDA’s ‘brigadiers’ is a long time security services agent, Sunday Life reveals today.

And we can also reveal that a secret meeting was held in London in the wake of the Castlereagh and Stormontgate scandals to stop the top loyalist agent from standing down.

The paramilitary ‘brigadier’ who was met in the English capital remains a member of the UDA’s ruling ‘inner council’.

Sunday Life knows his name - but is not publishing it.

His role as an agent was revealed by a senior and credible source.

Now, a prominent nationalist politician has called on State organisations and paramilitaries - both republican and loyalist - “to come clean on how deeply involved one was with the other”.

Alex Attwood, a former member of the Policing Board, made his call as the Eames-Bradley Consultative Group on the Past continues its work.

Its report and recommendations are due in the summer or early autumn.

“I think there were a lot more agents involved in more activities and at a much higher leadership level,” SDLP MLA Attwood told this newspaper.

“Many people died because of that - across the board, security force and civilian.”

The informer met in London is one example of how agent-running reached into the highest levels of paramilitary organisations.

The ‘CHIS’ - meaning covert human intelligence source - has operated at the heart of the UDA for years.

His threat to end his agent role was part of the nervousness and turmoil that resulted from the major security breaches of 2002.

Now, as the Eames-Bradley group looks into the past, Mr Attwood believes it is beginning to “get its head round the vastness of its work”.

He wants its report when published to reflect “daring thinking” and argues that the consultative group should be given all the help they need to “propose radical ideas”.

The group has already had access to the Stevens team - which investigated the murder of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane and other alleged acts of collusion.

Sunday Life today reveals that one of the UDA’s ‘brigadiers’ is a spy and that he wanted to stand down following the IRA’s spectacular break-in at Special Branch HQ at Castlereagh. He was persuaded to stay on following meeting with his handlers in London. Security journalist Brian Rowan examines the implications of the latest revelations about the ‘dirty war’

Sunday, January 06, 2008
Sunday Life

The meeting in London at which the UDA brigadier was present confirms what the SDLP’s Alex Attwood is saying.

It is the proof that the business of the dirty war and agent running went to the very top of the paramilitary organisations.

I have known about that London meeting for a considerable period of time - known who was there and what it was about.

So why reveal it now?

Maybe because one of the biggest pieces in that jigsaw of our past is that relationship between Special Branch, the Army, MI5 and the agents or informers.

It could be the gaping hole in the Eames-Bradley report - not because they will choose or want to ignore it, but because this particular jigsaw piece is hidden in the swamp of National Security.

This is the stuff that is buried because we are told it is not in the public interest.

And yet understanding that relationship - the extent of it, what it involved, who it involved and who knew what and when, is crucial to the truth of the past.

The agent at the London meeting has been at the decision-making heart of the UDA for years - in the rooms were orders were given, part of that war process of life and death. I know who he is - was told his name, and told that in all the fallout after Castlereagh and Stormontgate that he wanted to stand down.

It was a time of turmoil.

Agent codenames had been stolen from Castlereagh along with the names of their handlers and their telephone numbers.

That information was now in the hands of the IRA.

Then came Stormontgate - and then the in-fighting involving MI5 and the police over intelligence leaks to the media.

The most senior Special Branch officer in Belfast left his post in controversial circumstances.

In all that was going on, you could understand the nervousness of agents, and understand why the brigadier would want to walk away.

I am told he was persuaded to stay.

His is but one story of that dirty war - the tip of the intelligence iceberg.

Someone involved in that exploration of the past recently spoke of seeing 10 filing cabinets relating to republican informers.

It suggests a lot of files, a lot of names, a lot of secrets and a lot of reasons why the jigsaw picture will never be completed.

And what was the huge concern inside the intelligence world when the Police Ombudsman’s office was investigating the loyalist Mark Haddock and his agent role?

The concern was the trail would lead to the very top of the UVF organisation - up into those highest places of leadership - into another room and another place where for years life and death was decided.

So, when Alex Attwood talks about “a lot more agents involved in more activities and at a much higher leadership level” and that “many people died because of that”, I believe he is right.

Will the whole truth emerge?

Not all of it, because it is too ugly, and potentially destabilising.

So, there will be a story with missing pictures and missing words.

That is what we can expect.