• Home /
• Statewatch Database /
• Stevens stirs again

Stevens stirs again

01 May 1993

The Sunday Business Post claimed in May that John Stevens, the Deputy Chief Constable of Cambridge, is once again taking up the question of collusion between loyalist paramilitary groups and the security forces. Brian Nelson, who is serving a ten year sentence as a result of the original Stevens' inquiry and who, as the Belfast UDA's intelligence officer, supplied information to MI5 over a ten year period, was recently re-interviewed by Stevens. Nelson has written a 90,000 word "diary" of his activities which was acquired by the Panorama programme. Panorama linked British intelligence to the killing of Belfast solicitor, Pat Finucane and in February four America lawyers, including the Chief Judge of the New York State Court of Appeals, issued a report claiming there was good evidence linking the British army to the solicitor's death. Finucane was one of the lawyers who represented the families of the three IRA members shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar in March 1988. The latter killings are to be the subject of an oral hearing before the European Commission on Human Rights on 3rd September. Relatives are arguing that the right to life was violated by the SAS.

The full report of the Stevens inquiry has never been made public, along with the Stalker/Sampson reports. A San Francisco judge has demanded that the British government release these documents to the court in order that it may judge the extradition case involving James Smyth. The documents could reveal if collusion between loyalist paramilitary groups and the security forces is such that to return to Ireland would threaten Smyth's life - one of the grounds for refusing extradition in the recently re-negotiated treaty between Britain and the US. The treaty also allows for the production of any information relevant to the case. Smyth is one of 38 prisoners who escaped from the Maze prison in 1983.

The Sunday Business Post 23.5.93.