Garda ‘did not arrest bullet courier’

DETECTIVE Superintendent Kevin Lennon told the Morris Tribunal yesterday he took no action against alleged informer Adrienne McGlinchey when she took a lunchbox packed with bullets across the border for the IRA because she was helping gardaí.

Supt Lennon told the garda corruption probe Ms McGlinchey was to deliver the ammunition to a woman from Strabane's Ballycolman Estate at the request of the IRA and he did not order her arrest despite her refusal to divulge any information about the incident.

Giving evidence for a third day, the superintendent said he did not order an arrest because while making the delivery, she was also helping the gardaí.

Tribunal counsel Peter Charleton asked: "She is a terrorist, for heaven's sake, why not arrest her? She did not tell you anything."

Mr Lennon replied: "I did not even consider that because of her position as a courier and an informer.

"There was a frustration operation done in relation to an informer. It was often done before, by the way. Frustration operations were put in place to prevent movement, in order to cover informers.

"She was a courier for the IRA and assisting the guards, and we had to make consideration. She was not going to run away anywhere."

The superintendent said he contacted a counterpart in the RUC about the affair and the ammunition was recovered by police in Strabane the next day.

Tribunal chairman Mr Justice Frederick Morris asked if it had not been "an appalling betrayal" for Supt Lennon to describe Ms McGlinchey to the RUC, asking: "What way was this to treat a genuine informer?"

Mr Lennon answered: "In order to protect life and property, I had to tell the RUC."

He later requested more information about the Strabane incident from Ms McGlinchey but she flatly refused to say any more.

Mr Lennon said: "She would not tell me who told her what to do. She said 'that's what I had to do'. I told her that if she crossed the Border again, she would be leaving herself open to very serious matters."

Kevin Lennon and Noel McMahon are alleged, with Ms McGlinchey, to have prepared explosives for use in bogus garda arms finds in the 1990s.

The two officers have denied the claims, and Ms McGlinchey has maintained she was never an informer or an IRA member.