The RUC has set up an inquiry into the shooting of a uniformed police officer by a woman soldier in Belfast early yesterday morning. The man, who has not been named, was in a critical condition in the Royal Victoria Hospital last night after being shot after a car chase in north Belfast.
The shooting happened at about 1.20 a.m. after the woman's car, which was being pursued by RUC officers, crashed at Carlisle Circus, the junction of the Crumlin and Antrim roads.
The RUC officer is reported to have been walking towards the unmarked car when a number of shots were fired. The officer was in uniform, but had been in an unmarked car. The woman, an undercover soldier, was on duty.
The Assistant Chief Constable for Belfast, Mr Bill Stewart, said there were "very strict guidelines covering police and military operations designed to prevent such situations". The RUC would be "examining every facet of this incident".
A former RUC Police Authority member, Mr Chris Ryder, said the police should have been aware of any undercover army operation. Three special co-ordination groups control all undercover operations in Belfast, Derry and Portadown, he said. Army and RUC personnel have highly sophisticated radio communication between the co-ordination groups and each other.
"The questions that have to be asked are what the car was doing, why it was chased and why the security forces were not able to contact each other," Mr Ryder said. It is understood that undercover surveillance operations, which were scaled down following the ceasefires, have been stepped up after the recent loyalist attacks.
A Sinn Fein councillor, Mr Alex Maskey, described the incident as sinister and called on the British Security Minister to explain the circumstances immediately.
