The Police Ombudsman, Mrs Nuala O'Loan, is to press ahead with her request to interview a former undercover British soldier, who said the IRA murder of Lance Bombardier Stephen Restorick could have been prevented. Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor, reports.
Despite a British Ministry of Defence gagging order on the ex-soldier, Mrs O'Loan is anxious to determine the accuracy of the claim by interviewing the soldier.
The former soldier, operating under the pseudonym "Tony Buchanan", told the Sunday Times three weeks ago that the IRA sniper team which shot dead Lance Bombardier Restorick in Bessbrook in south Armagh in 1997 was under surveillance for 40 minutes before the soldier's death, but that permission to intercept the gang was refused.
He said that colleagues in a specialist undercover surveillance unit informed him they had been following the movements of the IRA sniper team. The soldiers asked for permission to intercept the IRA gang, but the Tactical and Co-ordinating Group, comprised of police Special Branch and MI5 members, insisted no IRA attack was planned. The undercover team was stood down, and shortly after Lance Bombardier Restorick was shot.
Based on Mr Buchanan's information Mrs O'Loan initiated an inquiry into the murder. But her power to interview Mr Buchanan is now called into question as the ministry has won a gagging order preventing the Sunday Times publishing further disclosures by Mr Buchanan, who is operating as a private soldier in Iraq. This order, it is understood, includes the Police Ombudsman.
A spokesman for the Ombudsman said "the allegations are so serious they warrant an investigation". The soldier's killers were apprehended but released early under the terms of the Belfast Agreement.