A RETIRED British army brigadier has told the Smithwick Tribunal that any sighting of two RUC officers leaving Dundalk Garda station was “very unlikely” to have been the event that triggered an IRA ambush 30 minutes later in which both died.
It would also have been “very ambitious” for the IRA to put such an operation in place based on seeing the officers leaving Newry for Dundalk just over two hours earlier, retired brigadier Mike Smith said.
He believed the ambush was not spontaneous but pre-planned and professionally carried out by an organisation considered among “the most capable and experienced terrorist groupings”.
A second retired brigadier, Ian Liles said he believed it would have been “impossible” for the IRA to set up the ambush within a period of less than three hours.
Intelligence reports relating to the killings contained “absolutely no information” about any telephone tip-off to the IRA about the visit of the RUC men, he added.
The tribunal is investigating suggestions of Garda collusion in the murders of Chief Supt Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan on March 20th, 1989.
The officers were gunned down near Jonesboro, Co Armagh, just after they had crossed the Border into Northern Ireland following a meeting in Dundalk Garda station.
Three serving members of the Garda in 1989 – retired Sgt Leo Colton, retired Det Sgt Owen Corrigan and former Sgt Finbarr Hickey – have all denied collusion.
The tribunal has heard the two RUC officers left Newry just after 1.30pm on March 20th, 1989, to arrive at Dundalk station between 2pm and 2.10pm. They left by 3.20pm and were shot dead about 3.50pm at an illegal IRA “checkpoint”.
The officers had sought a meeting in Dundalk about 10.30am that day but that was not possible and it was arranged for 2pm.
Yesterday, Mr Smith, who completed several tours of duty in Northern Ireland between 1971 and 1997, said a well-chosen ambush position was involved, and the relatively small number of rounds fired – 25 – indicated “carefully directed” gunfire and no panic among the IRA gunmen.
The evidence indicated the IRA was expecting a target to approach and intended to kill, not kidnap, the two officers, he added.
The officers would be considered a “soft target”, he added. Supt Buchanan was a frequent visitor to Garda stations, using the same car over a three-year period, and both officers had travelled in that car, he noted.
Mr Liles, who served in the North over 14 years, said evidence indicated the IRA’s mobilisation of men and weapons had begun an hour before the two RUC officers left Newry station.
The IRA in south Armagh was “extremely professional and extremely risk-averse” and never did anything “ad hoc”.
This type of operation would have taken considerable organisation, as several roads would have to have been covered. It was impossible for the IRA to have done it in under three hours and they would ideally have needed between five and eight hours.
A retired Garda detective, Bernard McGrath, said he believed the IRA had cleared the ground for the ambush before the two RUC officers came south of the Border and could have been on that job “for days”.
Mr McGrath, who served in Owen Corrigan’s unit in Dundalk in 1989, said there seemed to be “personal conflict” between Mr Corrigan and Supt Tom Connolly. Mr Corrigan had been very active in the unit with “very good knowledge of the local subversive scene”, but Supt Connolly excluded him and other members of his unit from “a lot of stuff”, he said.
Supt Connolly wanted things done his way or not at all and was “not over friendly with anyone”, Mr McGrath said.
