The Committee on the Administration of Justice, a Northern human rights group, has questioned a statement by the RUC Chief Constable, Sir Ronnie Flanagan, that the RUC was never made aware of threats against the life of Ms Rosemary Nelson, the murdered Lurgan solicitor. The committee is seeking clarification of the claim.
Last summer, the CAJ exchanged written correspondence with the North's Security Minister, Mr Adam Ingram, in an attempt to highlight continuing threats being made against Ms Nelson. The committee received a written assurance from the Minister's office that evidence of threats against the solicitor, examples of which it forwarded to Mr Ingram, had been passed to the Chief Constable's office.
The minutes of a meeting last month between the Police Authority and Sir Ronnie state that he told members of the authority that, before the murder of Ms Nelson, "the RUC did not have information to suggest that she was the subject of a specific terrorist threat".
Ms Nelson was killed last March when a bomb exploded beneath her car. The Red Hand Defenders, a dissident loyalist group, admitted the murder.
In a letter which has been seen by The Irish Times, Mr Ingram's personal secretary acknowledges receipt of copies of threatening letters which had been sent to Ms Nelson and were subsequently for warded to the Minister by the CAJ. These letter were then forwarded to the RUC, according to the Northern Ireland Office reply. "We passed the documents immediately to the Chief Constable's office for investigation. They would obviously, given the nature of the material, assess the security risk against Ms Nelson", stated the letter from Mr Ingram's office, dated September 1998.
"Obviously, the documents enclosed must be of concern to Ms Nelson and the others mentioned. The Minister has asked me to say that he hopes that those who produced them can be brought to justice for their threatening behaviour", the letter added.
In a letter dated August 1998, Mr Paul Mageean, legal officer of the CAJ, wrote to the Minister, enclosing what he described as "very definite threats" against the personal safety of Ms Nelson.
The first was a letter posted to Ms Nelson which read: "We have you in our sights . . . We will teach you a lesson. RIP." The second was a one-page pamphlet threatening Mr Breandan Mac Cionn aith, spokesman of the Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition, which included a reference to him receiving advice from Ms Nelson. Her address and telephone number were included in the pamphlet.
A spokeswoman for the CAJ, Ms Maggie Beirne, said last night that the organisation had "expressed disbelief" and was "mystified" at the Chief Constable's statement to the members of the Police Authority, which was reproduced in yesterday's editions of The Irish Times.
"We felt assured, as a result of the letter last summer, that the threats were being investigated and were being addressed seriously", Ms Beirne said.