Tuesday, 29 September 2009
A former Army spy claims that three IRA men who he says were spotted at the scene of the murder of policewoman Colleen McMurray have never been interviewed about the attack.
The former agent, who uses the pseudonym ‘Kevin Fulton’, was speaking after learning that a Police Ombudsman’s investigation into Constable McMurray’s murder has been concluded.
Fulton claims that the IRA trio were spotted in the vicinity of Merchant’s Quay in the town shortly before a horizontal mortar was fired killing Const McMurray and seriously injuring her colleague Paul Slaine. It’s understood that the Ombudsman’s investigation doesn’t highlight previous allegations that at least two police informants were involved in the March 1992 attack.
The families of the two officers have been briefed about the contents of the report, but it won’t be published until a member of one family returns from holiday.
The Police Ombudsman’s office declined to comment and would only say that it hoped to publish the report in a few weeks’ time. Fulton, who worked as an agent in the Newry area for the Army, has previously alleged that Special Branch agents were involved in the 1992 attack.
He was interviewed under caution by the Ombudsman’s investigators in 2006 but declined to make a statement after he was warned that he was being investigated about alleged involvement in IRA attacks in Newry while he operated as an agent.
Fulton swore an affidavit in 2004 which was given to a representative of Const McMurray’s family and then passed on to the former Ombudsman, Nuala O’Loan, who ordered an investigation.
Last year the Ombudsman’s investigators requested an interview with Fulton to discuss the 1992 attack.
He told them, however, that he couldn’t make any statement because he had been warned that he would face prosecution if he discussed his role as an agent inside the IRA.
Fulton has told friends that he believes his arrest at his London safehouse in 2006 was intended to deter him from commenting publicly about the attack.
It’s understood that one of the men named by Fulton was caught while carrying out a so-called ‘punishment’ beating following the 1994 IRA ceasefire and was charged with criminal offences, but the charges were later dropped.
Lagan Valley MP Jeffrey Donaldson, who has remained in close contact with Const McMurray’s family, said he understood that the Ombudsman had not finally signed off on the report.
Mr Donaldson said that he would await publication of the final version before commenting publicly.
Officer lost both legs in attack
By Emily Moulton
The IRA mortar attack that claimed the life of a policewoman and seriously injured her colleague took place during an upsurge in violence in Northern Ireland during the early 1990s.
Colleen McMurray was travelling in an unmarked police car, the first vehicle in a two-car patrol, with her colleague Paul Slaine (pictured right) when it was hit with a Mark 12 mortar along Merchants Quay, Newry, on March 27, 1992.
The device ripped through the officers’ vehicle causing it to crash into a row of parked cars. The mortar had been hidden in a parked car nearby and was fired through a hole in a metal panel that had been covered with cardboard.
Bomb experts believe it was triggered from the other side of the Newry Canal by a flash-gun unit.
Constable McMurray (34) from Sixmilecross in Co Tyrone was rushed to Daisy Hill Hospital but died from her injuries a short time later.
She was the sixth policewoman to be killed during the Troubles and the 37th person to die during that violent year of 1992.
Her colleague Constable Slaine lost both his legs in the attack.
He spent eight months in hospital recovering.
While he was there his wife and children were subjected to a campaign of intimidation, forcing them to move home just days after his release.
Despite the constant threat Const Slaine remained with the RUC in its information technology branch.
Eight years after the horrific attack, on April 12, 2004, Const Slaine accepted from the Queen on behalf of the RUC the George Cross.
It had been awarded to the force to honour the courage and dedication of police officers and their families throughout Northern Ireland. Read more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/ira-trio-lsquonot-quizzed-over-killingrsquo-14513933.html#ixzz0STvakfw1
