Report will call on PSNI to reopen murder cases
Naula O’Loan’s office has spent four years investigating the activities of Special Branch and their relationship with a UVF gang, based in the Mount Vernon estate in north Belfast.
Her report, made public today, concluded that senior Special Branch members protected their agents within the UVF from prosecution even when they knew murders had taken place. The probe was sparked over allegations that Raymond McCord Jr, a 22-year-old Protestant man beaten to death by the UVF in north Belfast in 1997, was killed by a police informer.
As part of the investigation into that murder, Ms O’Loan’s office uncovered a web of collusion which resulted in sectarian murders of innocent Catholics in the 1990s.
The UVF unit, which was investigated by the police ombudsman, was run almost from top to bottom by Special Branch agents who unleashed sectarian terror against Catholics in north Belfast. Ms O’Loan’s report is expected to call on the PSNI to re-open a number of murder cases dating back to the early 1990s.
Raymond McCord Sr, who campaigned to have his son’s murder investigated, said the next step was for an independent judicial inquiry.
“I am very grateful to the work that Ms O’Loan and her team have done in uncovering the truth behind my son’s murder, but what is needed is a full public inquiry,” said Mr McCord.
“These allegations go right to the heart of human rights and I will pursue my son’s killers in court while trying to address the wider issue in a public inquiry.”
Mr McCord also said he was “sickened by the hypocrisy of unionist politicians who ignored this case of a young Protestant being beaten to death by loyalist paramilitaries while shouting non-stop about the IRA”.
It emerged over the weekend that none of the officers mentioned in the report would face prosecution.
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