The families of three Catholic men shot dead by a loyalist gunman in 1988 said today they were suing police in the North and the British government for complicity in the killings.
In 1988, loyalist paramilitary Michael Stone killed three people and wounded 60 when he fired into the crowd with grenades and a gun during the funeral in Belfast of three IRA members killed by British special forces in Gibraltar.
The families quoted Stone's recently-published autobiography as evidence that British authorities had been linked to the attack.
"Several state agencies collaborated with Michael Stone in the murder and the attempted murder of the people present in Milltown cemetery," the Families for Justice association said in a statement.
The families are claiming compensation from the head of Northern Ireland's police force and Britain's Ministry of Defence over the deaths of their relatives.
In his book, they say, Stone claims to have received help from Northern Ireland's authorities ahead of the attack.
He claims to have been supplied with a gun and ammunition by the RUC.
Stone also claims the grenades used in the attack had been illegally imported from South Africa by British secret services and a British agent with the UDA.
British Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens revealed last month that a branch of British army intelligence and some police officers in Northern Ireland actively helped the UDA murder Catholics in the late 1980s.
Stone was arrested immediately after the 1988 attack and was sentenced to life imprisonment on half a dozen accounts of murder, but his sentence was later reduced under the terms of the Belfast Agreement.
The victims' families have called for all profits from the sale of Stone's book to be confiscated.
"To make a profit from the book about his deeds would be both morally reprehensible and disgusting," the families said.
AFP