Northern Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan has found that several RUC Special Branch officers colluded with North Belfast Ulster Volunteer Force members who were involved in more than a dozen murders, senior sources have told The Irish Times.
Her report, which will be published on Monday, finds that a significant number of Special Branch officers were complicit in protecting UVF agents or informers even though they knew they were directly involved in murders of Protestants and Catholics, the sources said.
The report is based on an investigation known as Operation Ballast and will be handed to the North's Director of Public Prosecutions who must then decide if former officers will face serious criminal charges.
"There is intelligence within the policing system linking UVF members from its Mount Vernon unit in north Belfast to many killings, and that RUC Special Branch officers protected them from being made accountable to the law," a senior source has said.
The report was triggered by the 1997 UVF murder of Raymond McCord jnr, allegedly on the orders of UVF Mount Vernon leader Mark Haddock, who is currently serving 10 years for the grievous bodily harm of Trevor Gowdy, a doorman at a social club in Monkstown, near Belfast in 2002.
Haddock, whom some of his UVF colleagues attempted to kill last May, also acted as an informer for Special Branch, it is claimed.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, who was briefed by Raymond McCord snr and others about Haddock and the claims of almost endemic RUC collusion, has taken a special interest in the case, and raised his concerns with British prime minister Tony Blair.