Collusion in killings confirmed

ROGUE elements in the security forces were involved in a deadly plot with loyalist paramilitaries to carry out a series of sectarian murders in the North, the Stevens Report confirmed yesterday.

Following a four-year inquiry into allegations of widespread collusion between Special Branch, Army officers and Protestant terrorists, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Sevens concluded there was damning proof of the use of agents in assassinations and the withholding evidence.

Mr Stevens whose inquiries centred on the shooting of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane by the Ulster Defence Association in February 1989, said that killing and the death of Protestant student Brian Adam Lambert in November 1987 could have been prevented.