Finucane: Mystery Intervention Against Finucane Inquiry

Prime Minister David Cameron allegedly told the family of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane others would not let a public inquiry into his murder happen, according to High Court papers...read more

http://www.u.tv/News/Mystery-intervention-against-Finucane-inquiry/0afea0e1-3b44-4a15-b166-97fb9e1cd671?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Operation #Tuleta:Peter Hain confirms investigation by police of high security hacking

News International's chief executive denies that company was involved in any interference with Hain's computers

Letters from Peter Hain and Tom Mockridge to the Guardian

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Peter Hain says 'the Guardian story [about the possible hacking of his computers] was an entirely accurate account of my interaction with Operation Tuleta'. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Peter Hain has confirmed that police have met him to investigate the possible hacking of his computers while he was in his high security cabinet post as Northern Ireland secretary between 2005 and 2007. The approach by officers from Operation Tuleta was first reported in the Guardian last month.

News International, the former publisher of the News of the World, which has been accused in another case at the Leveson inquiry of using a former soldier to plant computer viruses, had challenged the Guardian report about the police investigation. In an email to the paper the company's chief executive, Tom Mockridge wrote: "News International has been advised that Mr Hain's computer equipment (and that of the Northern Ireland Office) was not and has not been the subject of an investigation by Operation Tuleta and there is no belief or suspicion that this equipment was hacked."

But Hain said in a letter the NI claim was incorrect. "The Guardian story was an entirely accurate account of my interaction with Operation Tuleta.

"I met with DI Beswick, head of Operation Tuleta, at his request last month to discuss an investigation into the possible hacking of three of my computers during my time as secretary of state for Northern Ireland. Two of these computers were issued by the Northern Ireland Office. One was my personal computer. I have provided the Met with account details for all three computers as they requested. This is a matter of national security and subject to a police investigation."

He added: "But I can say that the police confirmed to me they had not eliminated any news organisation from their investigation."

Mockridge denies that News International was involved in any interference with Hain's computers. The Leveson inquiry has heard from Ian Hurst, a former British army intelligence agent who recruited and ran agents within the IRA in Northern Ireland. Hurst, who also used the pseudonym Martin Ingram, told the inquiry his computer was hacked into by a Trojan virus in 2006 by private investigators on behalf of the News of the World.

The Met, whose Operation Tuleta is one of three linked investigations into computer hacking, phone hacking and police corruption, declined to comment on the meeting with Hain. Met detectives working on Tuleta have made one arrest, of a man aged 52, in Milton Keynes last month. He was held at a Thames Valley police station and later bailed. The Tuleta team reports to Scotland Yard's deputy assistant commissioner, Sue Akers.

On Wednesday detectives working on Operation Elveden, the investigation into alleged illegal payments to police, made their first arrest of a police officer. A 52-year-old woman, believed to be a royal protection officer, was arrested in Essex.

In total there have been eight arrests in connection with Elveden, and 16 arrests by officers in the Met's phone-hacking investigation, Operation Weeting.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/dec/23/peter-hain-investigation-police-hacking?CMP=twt_gu

#Stakeknife : Some Stories Never Die

One such is the extraordinary Stakeknife story.

The legend of Freddie Scappaticci is about to receive renewed attention.


http://redfellow.wordpress.com/2011/06/09/some-stories-never-die/

#Smithwick : Narrow Water Cover-Up Claims Are Not Lies Insists Agent

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/narrow-water-coverup-claims-are-not-lies-insists-agent-16091881.html

The #Smithwick Tribunal

Tribunal of Inquiry  into suggestions that members of An Garda Síochána or other employees of  the State colluded in the fatal shootings of RUC Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and RUC Superintendent Robert Buchanan on the 20^th March, 1989.

The Smithwick Tribunal was established by Resolutions passed by Dail Eireann and Seanad Eireann on the 23^rd and 24^th March 2005 respectively, and by Instrument entitled Tribunals of Inquiry Evidence Act 1921 (Establishment of Tribunal) Instrument 2005.

The sole member of the Tribunal is His Honour Mr Justice Peter Smithwick

http://www.smithwicktribunal.ie/smithwick/HOMEPAGE.html

#Smithwick Tribunal May Hear Evidence From Scappaticci

FREDDIE SCAPPATICCI, the man who denies he was a British double agent in the IRA known as “Stakeknife”, may give evidence to the Smithwick Tribunal.

The tribunal was yesterday told Mr Scappaticci was in fact “Stakeknife”, regardless of his consistent public denials. Kevin Fulton, who worked as an informer for British security services after infiltrating the IRA in the Dundalk area in the 1980s, said Mr Scappaticci was a member of the IRA’s internal security, or “nutting squad”.

But in an occasionally heated exchange with Martin O’Rourke SC, counsel for Mr Scappaticci, Mr Fulton said it was “an actual fact” that “your client is an informer and he is Stakeknife”.

Following a break for lunch Mr Scappaticci’s legal team applied for additional legal representation. When tribunal chairman Judge Peter Smithwick asked if this meant Mr Scappaticci would make a statement and appear as a witness, he was told by the legal team that this was “under active consideration”.

Mr Fulton had earlier told the tribunal he also believed convicted IRA volunteer Patrick “Mooch” Blair was effectively another British agent who was “being protected by some state agency – North and South”.

Mr Fulton said Blair had made a bomb just days before the Omagh bombing and he believed this had in fact been the Omagh bomb. He and his M15 handlers had then decided to target Blair for arrest.

An elaborate sting involving the sale of £10 million worth of Viagra tablets was set up, but he said all his efforts to target Blair were thwarted, usually by police north and south of the Border.
He told Michael Durack SC, for the Garda, that he had been eventually told by his handler: “I am not to talk to you anymore.” Mr Fulton said he came to believe Blair was protected by State agencies and “walked on water” and was “more or less an agent”.

Mr Fulton – who is also known as Peter Keeley – has also alleged retired detective sergeant Owen Corrigan of Dundalk Garda station was an IRA mole in the Garda. But he agreed with Mr Durack that when he sought Garda help in securing “a financial package” from the British in 2002, he hadn’t mentioned any Garda-IRA collusion.

The tribunal is inquiring into suggestions of collusion between members of the Garda or other employees in the State in the murder of two RUC officers, Chief Supt Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan, in March 1989.


http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/1217/1224309215606.html

Garda Collusion Allegations :Author of the book ‘Bandit Country’, Toby Harnden, speaks exclusively to the Examiner

Speaking exclusively to The Dundalk Examiner, author of Bandit Country Toby Harnden gave us the following statement in relation to Garda collusion allegations...

"I have always said that I would be happy to assist any inquiry into the circumstances of the Breen and Buchanan killings, subject, of course, to my duty as a journalist to protect confidential sources. That remains the case."
 
"I willingly assisted both the Garda and the RUC on separate occasions in 2000 when two officers from each force flew out to speak to me informally. No one from Judge Peter Cory's inquiry team saw fit to contact me, an omission that clearly calls into question the thoroughness of his investigation."
 
"In 'Bandit Country', I identified the two Garda officers suspected of collusion with the IRA as Garda X and Garda Y. At this stage I am not going to make any comment as to their names."
"As far as I can recall, before publication of my book in November 1999 I had never met or spoken to Kevin Myers."
 
"My book is a serious work of scholarship based on extensive research as well as interviews with British Army, RUC, Garda and IRA members, amongst others. The section on the killings of Ch Supt Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan - by far the most detailed account of what happened - speaks for itself and I would urge anyone interested in this issue to read it carefully before rushing to any judgements."
 
"The section is, however, only one element of the history of South Armagh. About 150,000 copies of 'Bandit Country' have been bought in Ireland, the UK and elsewhere in the world and I have no doubt that the publicity surrounding the Breen and Buchanan killings - the overwhelming majority of it not generated by me - has played but a small part in this."