The RUC have again rejected allegations of official collusion between the Northern security forces and Loyalist paramilitaries. The denial follows claims made in a BBC television documentary on Loyalists that is due to be broadcast on Sunday.
In the programme, one former paramilitary leader claims that detailed intelligence reports on IRA suspects were regularly supplied to his organisation. UDA leader Bobby Philpott said that detailed RUC and British Army intelligence reports on IRA suspects were once supplied every day to loyalist paramilitaries. He said that he was getting so many documents that he did not know where to put them all.
In a BBC documentary on Loyalists to be broadcast this weekend, Bobby Philpott said that he knew where suspects lived, what type of cars they drove, the safe houses they used and even the colour of their socks and jumpers. In the five years from 1989, Loyalists killed 27 members of the IRA, Sinn Féin and their families. Another one hundred and five Catholics were murdered during the same period.
The British Government is already under growing pressure to order an independent judicial inquiry into the murder of one of those victims Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane shot dead by the UDA at his North Belfast home ten years ago. Relatives alleged British military intelligence was involved.
The RUC has rejected the claims saying that allegations of official collusion have been investigated in the past with nothing to support them. The Sinn Féin President, Gerry Adams, has called for an independent public inquiry saying the issue of collusion was an open secret.
