ULSTER POLICE COVER UP MURDER BY INFORMER.

Special Branch officers who covered up the involvement of one of their agents in the murder of a British soldier in Ulster could face charges of perverting the course of justice, Sunday People can reveal. A formal complaint was lodged with the Police Ombudsman, Nuala O'Loan, yesterday about the former tout, Martin McGartland, and his role in the brutal slaying of an unarmed squaddie.
McGartland was recruited as an informer by RUC Special Branch in the late 1980s and early 1990s before dramatically escaping from an IRA interrogation squad. He has since admitted his role in the murder of soldier Tony Carlos Harrison.
The 21-year-old Londoner was shot dead by two IRA men who burst into his girlfriend's home at Nevis Avenue in east Belfast on June 19, 1991. McGartland drove the gunmen to and from the murder scene. Paratrooper Harrison had been on leave to discuss his future wedding plans with his fiancee. His murder was witnessed by her, her mother and a terrified 10-year-old girl.
Now a civilian with an interest in the case has come forward to lodge a formal complaint with the Ombudsman's office.
The man, who has asked to remain anonymous, says both McGartland and his handlers should be investigated. In particular, he says, the decision not to prosecute McGartland for murder or conspiracy to murder despite his confession, was illegal. He claimed that police were obliged to investigate any confession of murder. To refuse to do so, because the person confessing to the crime was a police informer, was not a legal act.
McGartland, who has since survived an IRA assassination attempt at his home in the north of England, has confessed to his role in the killing on a number of occasions. In a letter to the Daily Telegraph in February 1997 he said: "I would like to place on record the facts concerning the tragic murder of Private Tony Harrison, the soldier killed by two gunmen in 1991 while visiting his fiancee in Protestant East Belfast to discuss wedding plans.
"I was indeed the getaway driver in Pte Harrison's killing by the IRA, a fact that has haunted me ever since.
"But Pte Harrison's parents should know that one month before the shooting I heard of the plot and told Special Branch immediately.
"We spent hours driving up and down streets in the area trying to locate where a soldier, then thought to be a member of the Ulster Defence Regiment, was living.
"Special Branch made inquiries of the UDR and the British battalions then serving in Northern Ireland, all to no avail. We had no name, no address and no facts to go on. No trace could be found of the relatives of any soldier living in that area.
"On the day of the shooting I was called to a meeting by the IRA. Every such meeting I attended was on orders of my intelligence handlers so that I could report back.
"On this occasion I attended the meeting only to be told I was leaving that instant on an active service mission.
"My task in the four years I worked as an agent in Northern Ireland was to save the lives of innocent people.
"But I also had to make sure that my cover was not blown, for agents working inside the IRA were few and far between.
"I deeply regret what happened but I accept responsibility for my role in the events of that day."
This confession could never be challenged by the family. They were told by the prosecuting authorities in 1994 that they could not pursue legal proceedings for compensation because the coroner had failed to establish who killed their son.
The soldier's father Steve Seaman said at the time of the confession: "It is not a case of us desperately wanting compensation, but it would make our pain much more bearable to know how Tony died." At the time of Tony's murder - and shortly after McGartland failed in a bid to get compensation from the government for his time as an informer - Mr Seaman expressed deep frustration with the police handling of the case.
"We were outraged that McGartland was asking for money and desperately hoped his claim would fail," said his father a retired Catholic primary school caretaker from Bow, east London.
"It was sickening that some MPs could support a man who was an accomplice to our son's murderers.
"Tony would be married now with children. But he is dead and that will stay with us for the rest of our lives," Mr Seaman said.
"He had been a soldier for six years and we knew that there was a risk he might die in action.
"But to be shot in the back while watching television with his girlfriend is so worthless, so cowardly.
"He had talked to his mother only an hour or so before, asking how to cook pasta. And then he died, just like that."
The family have campaigned since their son's death to establish who killed him. McGartland claims he gave his RUC contacts the names of the two IRA men involved. Pte Harrison's parents are still deeply unhappy about the RUC's role in their son's murder.
"We are left with so many unanswered questions and have nobody to turn to," Mrs Seaman said.
"Why was Tony not warned if everyone knew that the IRA were about to kill in that area?
"He was a soldier and had to report his leave at his barracks."
Pte Harrison's fiancee was led by the gunmen to the bedroom of her home before they shot him five times.
"I was there when he was shot and I will never get over what happened," she said.
"What has hurt the most is that I try to get on with my life, every day a little bit more and, at the same time, there are MPs who actually listened to what this man had to say."
McGartland remains in hiding in England. In June 1999, he survived an IRA murder bid at his home in Whitley Bay.
Last night one source close to the complainant revealed: "The failure of the authorities to prosecute McGartland for murder shows that officially the state was prepared to allow agents to carry out murders.
"There has never been any way of addressing this before.
"Now the ombudsman can ask the questions and she will demand answers."
August 4, 2002

To date Martin McGartland and his police handlers have never been arreastd or interviewed over the murder of Tony Harrison.