Special Branch ‘withheld vital murder evidence’
Even though the RUC built up high-grade intelligence on those suspected of plotting Eoin Morley’s shooting, no one was ever arrested.
With the victim’s family claiming officers protected the gunman, her assessment failed to clear the force. Police were also unable to tell Ombudman Nuala O’Loan who took charge of the inquiry.
After examining files on the 1990 killing, which was linked to a dispute among republicans, Mrs O’Loan found no evidence to back claims it was planned by the RUC.
But her examination of Special Branch files uncovered 10 separate items of information which may have been vital to the investigation yet were never passed on to detectives.
The anti-terrorist unit’s failures were unacceptable, the report found.
The Ombudsman’s assessment echoes an earlier dossier she compiled on the hunt for the Omagh bombers.
On that occasion her team established warnings of a terrorist strike were never relayed to officers in the Co Tyrone market town where the Real IRA killed 29 people in 1998.
The latest probe was launched after relatives of Mr Morley, 23, alleged police instigated the murder in an attempt to ignite a republican feud and refused to arrest the chief suspect.
The victim was gunned down at his girlfriend’s home in Newry, Co Down, on Easter Sunday 1990 amid tensions between the IRA and the Irish People’s Liberation Organisation.
As well as backing the family’s view that police did not conduct a thorough and proper investigation, Mrs O’Loan’s team established a number of other significant failings.
Despite having information linking a named man to a gun which was later revealed to be the murder weapon, the murder file did not list him as a suspect or check him against fingerprint evidence. When he was arrested two months later over a separate incident, a hair sample was taken, but never compared to clothing found earlier.
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