28 March 2012
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Northern
Ireland
Inside Castlereagh: Files stolen from Special Branch HQ
Sir Colin Smith was Chief Constable of Thames Valley police
before joining Her Majestys Inspector of Constabulary in
1991. Appointments to the HMIC are made by the Crown on the recommendation
of the Secretary of State. There is no open public competition
for the posts. Traditionally, all appointments were drawn from
the senior ranks of the police, but since 1993 there have been
some non-police officers appointed. Sir Ronnie Flanagan, on his
retirement, was the most recent appointment to be made to the
HMIC, notwithstanding the Police Ombudsman's criticisms of his
judgement as "flawed". The Chief Inspector of the HMIC
is the most powerful official in British policing after the Head
of the Police Department in the Home Office. The role of the
HMIC is to examine and improve the efficiency of the police service.
It also has a responsibility for making sure that any recommendations
made following an inquiry, such as the Stalker/Sampson inquiry,
would be fully implemented. Each of Her Majestys Inspectors
is responsible for a number of police forces. Since his appointment
in 1991 Smith has had responsibility for the RUC for at least
seven years.
Chilcot and Smith's terms of reference are to establish a) how
unauthorised access was gained to Castlereagh, b) the extent
of any damage caused to national security, c) the adequacy of
action subsequently taken to mitigate any such damage and to
prevent unauthorised access there and in similar buildings elsewhere,
and d) any wider lessons to be learnt. The Chilcot/Smith review
will report directly to Reid who is already cautioning that "it
is not easy to get answers in Northern Ireland" and that
"no one can guarantee anything in Northern Ireland".
The prospects of the report being published are remote. The government
has yet to acknowledge the existence of FRU or similar units
and Reid himself when at the Defence Ministry refused to answer
parliamentary questions on FRU. The last parliamentary question
on FRU (13 December 1999) drew the response that the "Force
intelligence Unit" (!) provides "analytical and security
advice to assist the RUC in defeating terrorism".
Arrests
At 7.00 am on 30 March armed members of the PSNI forcibly entered
the building in which the Pat Finucane Centre is based (the Pat
Finucane Centre runs a major website on Northern Ireland policing
controversies and can be found at www.serve.com/pfc/).
The purpose allegedly was to search the offices of Tar Abhaile,
on the floor above the PFC. A private flat on the ground floor
was also entered. PFC, when they arrived at work at 9.00 am,
were denied access to their office. They contacted two members
of the management committee who were also denied access to the
building on the grounds that they were likely to interfere
with the search. Later that day it emerged that the offices
of Cúnamh, a victims support group which has helped numerous
families of those killed or wounded on Bloody Sunday, were also
raided and personal and confidential information relating to
the families were taken. Other raids were carried out in Belfast
leading to the arrest of four men and one woman. One of those
arrested was a civilian worker from a loyalist estate in East
Belfast. A West Belfast Sinn Féin MLA member immediately
condemned the arrests and raids as ridiculous and
highly provocative. There were more arrests on 4
April and PSNI have threatened further raids.
Eight of the nine people detained were subsequently released.
One man from the New Lodge area of Belfast was subsequently charged
with possessing documents containing information which could
be useful to terrorists planning or carry out an act of violence,
contrary to the Terrorism Act 2000. For a couple of weeks, no
details were given about the documents and police sources briefed
that they were not linked to the Castlereagh break-in. This changed
when unofficial police briefings said that the documents contained
an "IRA hitlist" of Tory politicians (even though one
such politician subsequently spent a day wandering around Crossmaglen
in order to prove that there were "no no-go areas in the
UK".) Following the arrests, a story began to circulate
that an American man who previously worked in Castlereagh as
a chef had republican connections. He had moved from the US to
Belfast several years ago. Initially, he worked in a Belfast
restaurant and then was employed as a chef in Antrim Road Police
station before moving to the Castlereagh police complex. He returned
to the US sometime before the raid and PSNI detectives have travelled
to the United States to interview him. According to the Irish
Times (10 April 2002) "senior police sources are now following
one line of inquiry only and that is one of IRA involvement".
Police reportedly told Trimble that the IRA was responsible within
24 hours of the break-in (Irish Times, 10.4.02).
Police demoralisation?
The Castlereagh burglary and subsequent police raids come at
a time when great attention is being paid to police reform. On
5 April, the first batch of 44 PSNI trainees, including 13 women,
recruited under the 50/50 Protestant/Catholic requirements of
the Police Act, graduated from their initial training. On the
same day, the new police uniforms and badge were introduced.
In the government's eyes, much of the credibility of the re-branding
of the RUC rests on attracting Catholics into the PSNI so that
the conservative target of the Patten Report can be met. Patten
presented a detailed model of RUC downsizing and new recruitment,
designed to achieve a 30% Catholic PSNI by 2011.
A private consortium of companies including Deloitte & Touche,
Pearn Kandola, AV Browne and BMI Health Services, operating under
the name of Consensia, began advertising for new police recruits
in February 2001. It has spent over £540,000 on advertising
and claims to have received 20,000 requests for application forms,
40% of which have been returned as applications. The selection
process takes about five months. Applicants are first of all
screened for age and nationality requirements before going through
a series of selection tests, including medical, physical competence
and firearms handling tests. Those who get through all these
tests join a pool of "qualified candidates" and it
is from this pool that the 50/50 recruitment takes place. Initially,
much publicity was given to the level of interest from Catholics,
but the crucial issue is how many Catholics make it to the qualified
candidate pool. This is what determines whether the Patten targets
can be met or not. In the first recruitment round, 550 applicants
made it to the pool (less than 7% of applicants) of whom 154
(or 28%) were described as Catholics. 33% of the total were women.
These 154 "Catholics" were joined by 154 Protestants
to become trainee police officers. The total of 308 for the first
round is in fact 17% below the Patten model of 370 new recruits
each year. Of the 47 who began training in November, one was
transferred due to injury and two were expelled on disciplinary
grounds. This suggests a trainee drop-out rate of 6 per cent.
The second round of recruitment attracted 4,700 applicants, but
1,200 of these were repeats from the first round. 14% of the
applications were from people living outside of Northern Ireland,
more than three-quarters of whom are said to be "Catholics".
This suggests that up to 40% of the "Catholics" who
make it to the qualified candidate pool are from outside of Northern
Ireland. Although Consensia collects post code information from
candidates, it has not revealed what proportion of the qualified
candidate pool are Catholics from Northern Ireland or indeed
if the recruitment exercise is succeeding in getting significant
and proportionate numbers from republican communities into the
pool.
Recruitment is one side of the coin. Downsizing is the other.
In the past few months, there have been increasing claims that
police numbers are falling to "dangerously" low levels.
This tends to be associated with the police role in North Belfast
where on-street conflict has been a daily feature since loyalists
began barring school children and their parents from walking
to Holy Cross primary school in September 2001. £26m has
been added to the police budget since last August, ostensibly
to police North Belfast. Reports of the violence typically begin
with the numbers of police officers injured - the Police Federation
says that over 800 officers have been injured in the last six
months. Certainly, rates of absenteeism through injury and/or
sickness have risen substantially in the period since the 1994
ceasefires and there is some anecdotal evidence from the insurance
industry and elsewhere that many claims are exaggerated, if not
bogus. This is linked in some officers' eyes to the police reform
process and the loss of the primary objective of counter-terrorism.
For instance, one officer has claimed that:
"The morale in this organisation is lower now than it
was during the worst days of the Troubles, absolutely rock bottom.
Then everyone was completely dedicated in trying to create circumstances
in which it was more difficult for terrorists. You had a goal,
you had something to work towards. I was slightly injured myself
in a bomb attack some years back and I didn't take a day's sick
then. The next day I was back at work because I was still able
to walk and talk and I didn't want to put any further pressure
on my colleagues. That's all changed now. If someone threw a
stone at me now I'd take six months on the sick." (Ulster Gazette, 8 November 2001)
Police sickness rates have reached very high levels in Northern
Ireland. In 1992, the average days absence through sickness per
year per officer was 14 days (almost three working weeks). This
rose to 22 days in 2000 and the current figure is 24 (the figure
in Britain is around 12). A "sickness management policy"
was introduced for the first time in December 2000 which included
a provision barring people from promotion if their sickness level
exceeded 14 days per year (the legitimacy of which was recently
upheld in a judicial review case, then overturned by the Appeal
Court). The management target is to bring the figure down from
24 to 16 days.
On the day the RUC changed its name to PSNI there were 7,173
regular police officers and 2,279 in the full-time reserve -
a total of 9,452. These were supplemented by 1,032 part-time
reservists. The uniformed officers were supported by a total
of 3,465 other staff. As of 6 March, the number of regular PSNI
officers had fallen to 7,091 (not including full- and part-time
reservists) compared to the Patten target for 2002 of 7,215,
but this will be supplemented before the end of the year by the
308 new recruits. Patten projected 2,106 leavers in year one
of police reform (the year 2001): the actual number of leavers
was 1,069 regulars and 129 full-time reservists. The police continue
to be supported by 14,500 troops (2,000 less than in 1998).
While the idea of a numbers crisis is, therefore, less than convincing,
there is evidently some division within the police service between
traditionalists and modernisers. The former, with considerable
political support in Ireland and Britain, seek to maximise the
public order and counter terrorist roles. For example, it was
revealed in January that the police continued until very recently
to purchase vast quantities of plastic bullets. 22 of these were
used operationally in the year 2000 while 76,320 were purchased
(46,000 in 2001) (Hansard 9 Jan 2002, WA col. 878). At an estimated
cost of £6.80 per bullet, this means that the RUC spent
over £2.5m on plastic bullets from 1995 to 2001. Regarding
counter-terrorism, it is not surprising to find that changes
to Special Branch have been minimal. The second report from the
Oversight Commissioner (appointed to monitor progress on the
implementation of Patten) stated that no systematic plan for
the reduction of Special Branch was available, the amalgamation
of support units had not begun and that "documentary evidence
of administrative progress on issues involving Special Branch
was not available as of 1 October, 2001". About 80 out 850
Special Branch officers are thought to have retired. The latest
complaint comes from a group of officers at inspector level who
say that Special Branch are taking advantage of the unusual number
of vacancies at superintendent level to move their people into
senior positions (Irish News 20 March 2002).
IRA or JSG?
Institutional and political tensions over police reform may provide
part of the background for the Castlereagh break-in, but they
do not provide an immediate explanation. From all the speculation
so far, two main scenarios emerge. The first is that the IRA
were responsible, although it has denied involvement. The initial
police position was that Castlereagh was an "inside job":
Flanagan himself said he would be "most surprised"
if "paramilitaries or civilians" were responsible for
the break-in (Independent 25 March 2002). However it was not
long after Flanagan retired that police sources then decided
that the IRA were the prime suspects.
The Castlereagh documents had been taken to Derry and then across
the border, so the story ran. There is no question that the IRA
would have an interest in the identities of informers and their
handlers, particularly since security sources have, in recent
years, played up the role of a "double agent" within
the IRA known as "steaknife" (or stakeknife - spellings
vary). It would also relish any disruption of Special Branch.
There have been reports of up to 250 Special Branch officers
being told to move house and of general panic among informers.
On the other hand, the house and office raids, which might in
some people's minds lend credibility to the idea of IRA responsibility,
seem to have been "show raids". Some reports have pointed
out that computer disks were arbitrarily selected, that children's
clothes and videos were seized and that the questioning of those
detained lacked purpose and seriousness. Unusually, some of the
seized property was returned within days. The disinterested nature
of the questioning points towards the raids having other purposes,
including the planting or removing of listening devices. A Sunday
Times article (14 April, 2002) claimed the removal of covert
bugs was the motive behind the raids.
The police have pushed the idea that some of those detained had
links with the American employed as a chef at the Castlereagh
complex, and it is possible that this man was in a position to
pass on Castlereagh canteen gossip to republicans. On the other
hand, one detainee complained to the Irish News that he was arrested
because the police had access to the American's mobile phone
records which showed the American had his number. This was because
he worked as a voluntary counsellor with an organisation which
the American had approached for help. His only contact was over
the phone - he never met the man. This account does suggest that
police are prepared to carry out raids solely on the basis of
telephone billing records. But none of this explains how a chef
would have access to, and knowledge of, core Special Branch intelligence
facilities within the Castlereagh complex. A further police briefing
claimed to the BBC that they were "interested in a number
of mobile phones that were being used in west Belfast in the
period leading up to the break-in and on the night of the robbery
itself", phones which had since gone quiet. Calls to a number
of public telephone boxes in west Belfast were also reported
top be part of the investigation, suggesting widespread use of
telephone taps and connection data monitoring.
The second scenario is that the Castlereagh break-in was designed
to remove and conceal documents in order to protect intelligence
interests. This would be entirely consistent with past patterns
and practice. If FRU could, as has been suggested, set fire to
the Stevens Inquiry office once, it could certainly thwart the
inquiry again. "Stevens 3" is poised to report, notwithstanding
continuing delays caused by "on-going criminal investigations"
into the murder of solicitor Pat Finucane and the recent murder
of a key loyalist involved in the affair, William Stobie. When
Stevens was appointed Metropolitan Police Commissioner in 1999,
Hugh Orde was put in charge of the day-to-day running of the
Stevens inquiry. Orde is deputy assistant commissioner in the
London Metropolitan Police and was one of the detectives who
investigated the Stephen Lawrence murder. He has applied for
the post of PSNI Chief Constable.
Orde is reportedly waiting to interview Brigadier Gordon Kerr,
currently the British military attaché in Beijing. Kerr
was head of FRU at the time of the Finucane murder which involved
British Army agent Brian Nelson. Stevens' first collusion inquiry
netted Nelson and Kerr gave evidence at Nelson's trial in camera
as "Colonel J". Kerr's evidence was that Nelson's ten
year service as an agent had saved many lives.
There is little doubt that British intelligence has been fighting
hard to prevent an independent public inquiry into Finucane's
murder. An example of this appeared in the Dublin-based Sunday
Tribune recently when the newspaper published extracts of an
affidavit to the London High Court sworn by Brigadier Arundell
David Leakey, Director of Military Operations in the MoD (from
1997) and in overall charge of all military operations in Northern
Ireland including covert intelligence gathering and the work
of Joint Support Group (formerly known as the Force Research
Unit) (Sunday Tribune 14 April, 2002). The affidavit was presented
as part of a court hearing held in camera in February 1998 to
consider an application by MoD for an injunction to prevent the
publication of Nicolas Davies' book "Ten-Thirty-Three: the
inside story of Britain's secret killing machine in Northern
Ireland" (Mainstream Publishing 1999). The book, whose title
comes from Brian Nelson's code number, confirms collusion between
British Army intelligence units and loyalist paramilitaries at
the highest level, including two attempts to assassinate Alex
Maskey (Sinn Fein MLA and leader of the SF local councillors
in Belfast). It also confirms what many observers strongly suspected
was an official policy of withdrawing police and army patrols
from areas prior to the entry of loyalist murder squads, using
"restriction orders" (see for example Amnesty International's
Report on Political Killings in Northern Ireland).
In the High Court challenge the MoD succeeded in getting control
of the manuscript and Davies' computer, deleting around 10,000
words before allowing the heavily censored version to be published.
The Sunday Tribune story was written by Ed Moloney and Lin Solomon.
Moloney is the journalist to whom UDA activist William Stobie
gave details of loyalist collaboration with Special Branch and
military intelligence at the time of Finucane's murder. Stobie
was arrested soon after the murder but charges were dropped.
He told his story to Moloney as a safeguard against further arrest.
Moloney was instructed to keep the testimony secret unless Stobie
found himself in court again over Finucane, which he did last
year as a result of further investigations by the Stevens inquiry.
Moloney released the testimony and the RUC responded by pursuing
Moloney through the courts for his original notes. They were
not successful on this occasion. A key witness for the new Stobie
trial withdrew evidence on grounds of ill-health and the trial
collapsed. Shortly after his release and call for an independent
inquiry, Stobie himself was murdered (12 December 2001). Although
claimed by the "Red Hand Defenders" it is widely assumed
that ulterior motives of Special Branch and British intelligence
are not far in the background. Shortly after Stobie's murder
another senior loyalist, Ken Barrett, disappeared and is now
thought to be under the protective custody of the Stevens team.
Barrett is alleged to have confessed to shooting Finucane, a
confession which was taped by two CID officers in 1991 but he
was never charged because Special Branch intervened and subsequently
"lost" the tape.
Leakey's affidavit provides direct evidence of how military intelligence
views any possible inquiry into the work of Brian Nelson and
the murder of Pat Finucane. It is based on a doctrine of total
secrecy: "the effectiveness of the unit would be seriously
damaged if the confidence of serving personnel and current agents
in the complete secrecy which surrounds their operations were
in any way impaired". The affidavit goes on: "the fact
that Nelson pleaded guilty prevented the disclosure of large
quantities of highly sensitive information in the course of the
trial" [since many charges were dropped and no cross examination
of witnesses occurred]. The Davies book, based on the experience
of one of Nelson's former handlers, threatened to reveal what
was prevented from coming out by Nelson's guilty plea. Leakey
states:
"the disclosure of such information would be extremely
damaging to national security and to the public interest as well
as to the security of Nelson and his family. it could seriously
damage the confidence which agents or potential agents have or
would have in the ability of the Army and the Government to protect
their identity and thus their safety" (Sunday
Tribune 14 April, 2002, p12).
Another example of planning for cover-ups concerned the civil
action threatened by the families of victims of the Dublin/Monaghan
bombings of 1974 around which allegations of collusion are currently
under investigation by Justice Henry Barron on behalf of the
Irish government. A letter from the Treasury Solicitor dated
24 September 1999 showed that the British government considered
a defence of "sovereign immunity" (Sunday Tribune 21
April 2002).
If one possibility is that the break-in was is some way concerned
with damaging Stevens 3 and preventing an independent inquiry
into Pat Finucane's murder, another is that the raid was designed
to remove very specific evidence concerning an informer or contact
records. An intriguing report in the Sunday Tribune (24 March
2002) by Sunday Herald journalist Neil Mackay suggested the Castlereagh
raid was about removing evidence of agent "Stakeknife's"
existence. The immediate threat comes from disaffected agents
and informers (some linked to the "mole" group) who
have been seeking better treatment from the government. One of
these, "Kevin Fulton" an agent planted inside the Real
IRA, has threatened to name Stakeknife (an IRA member turned
informer). Fulton has irritated his former handlers by alleging
in the Sunday People that information supplied by himself could
have prevented the Omagh bombing. It was these reports which
led to O'Loan's embarrassing investigation. So a further possibility
is that the break-in was designed to remove material relating
to the Omagh bombing, notably concerning an alleged second informer
(in addition to Fulton) who may have been part of the bomb team.
The weekend of the Castlereagh raid, rumours flew through the
intelligence community that Fulton's true identity was to be
revealed in the Sunday Tribune, which had told distributors that
it was doubling the normal print run (because of a paedophile
story, in fact). Fulton was not "outed" but the raid
went ahead as a precautionary measure in any event. Mackay further
alleges that Stevens has been "sniffing around" Stakeknife,
to the annoyance of military intelligence.
When Stevens reports, the political case for a full-blown independent
judicial inquiry into collusion between security forces and loyalists,
involving targeted murders, may become irresistible. The latest
attempts to stall such an inquiry - the appointment of a judge
(not yet named) to look into whether or not an inquiry is merited
(!), and the insulting offer of £10,000 to Geraldine Finucane
(Pat Finucane's widow) - have not impressed the UN's Human Rights
Committee, lawyers within Britain, Ireland and the US, and the
United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges
and Lawyers. Whatever the outcome of the Castlereagh break-in,
the pressure is on Special Branch and the intelligence services.
During April and following the Castlereagh break-in, the number
of unattributed, unsubstantiated stories claiming that the IRA
had broken the cease fire, was re-arming (with Russian guns)
and was engaged in training "narco-terrorists" in Colombia
and even helping Palestinians to make crude pipe bombs, reached
fever pitch. Coinciding with congressional hearings on the IRA
and Colombia, commentators began to report that "leaking
and spinning" from anti-Agreement, anti-police reform Special
Branch and intelligence sources was getting out of hand and worrying
the government. It had accelerated since Flanagan's departure
and, as the Guardian and ndependent speculated, appeared increasingly
to be aimed at damaging Sinn Fein's election efforts in the May
general election in the Irish Republic. This pattern of leak
and spin has many historical precedents.
From a broader perspective, the break-in provides another incident
which appears to suggest that the Special Branch and sections
of the security services operate outside of the law. Notwithstanding
numerous internal police inquiries - Stalker, Sampson, Stevens
1, Stevens 2, Stevens 3 - and one major external enquiry by the
Ombudsman, the secret services appear to have been able to thwart
all these and continue to operate as a fifth column with their
own agenda within British and Irish politics. The establishment
of an internal police inquiry into the raid, whose report, like
all the other reports, will never be made public, will not increase
the publics confidence in the police service. Similarly,
the Chilcot/Smith inquiry will do little to enhance public accountability.
Both men are far too closely associated with these services over
many years and, if there is evidence that intelligence personnel
have acted beyond the law, this is unlikely to be made public.
The Labour government will no doubt continue to make sure that
state secrets are never revealed. The intriguing question is
why?
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