'Outsider' to probe Special Branch break-in

Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid was today announcing the person who will head an external probe into the theft of confidential Special Branch documents detailing anti-terrorist intelligence by secret agents.

Dr Reid ordered an urgent independent investigation into the security blunder amid major concerns that the North’s police informer network has been left dangerously exposed.

Several agents have been warned their lives could be in danger after three men, one with an English accent, broke into offices in Belfast and stole a bundle of notebooks in one of the most devastating breaches ever to hit the force.

The raid on the Castlereagh complex in east Belfast has stunned retiring Northern Ireland Chief Constable Sir Ronnie Flanagan, who has launched a huge internal probe.

But Dr Reid has also announced he is appointing somebody with an intelligence background to carry out an independent review of security procedures and at the same time assess the scale of damage to covert operations.

The appointment will come from the UK and is expected to be told by Dr Reid to examine every aspect of security arrangements in the province.

‘‘Nothing is off limits on this one,’’ a senior source said.

‘‘We just don’t know who was involved, if it was paramilitaries or outsiders, but it’s got a bad smell.’’

He will also be instructed to find out how the breach happened, check on the action taken in response and identify wider lessons.

Every Special Branch and military intelligence officer who had access to Castlereagh is expected to be questioned.

Detectives heading up the police inquiry believe the intruders who rifled drawers and filing cabinets for up to 20 minutes in search of the classified material included at least one man with inside knowledge.

Belfast’s most senior detective, Chief Superintendent Phil Wright, is to head up the police inquiry. Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan will carry out her own probe.

But the decision by Dr Reid to order his review confirmed the gravity of Sunday night’s break-in when a Special Branch officer was overpowered after the three men managed to slip past security.

Police chiefs are examining a number of motives for the robbery, including possible attempts to:

:: Damage the Chief Constable who is due to retire at the end of the month.

:: Undermine the work of Special Branch, which is already under intense pressure following serious allegations of their work in the run-up to the August 1998 Omagh bomb outrage.

:: Demand some sort of ransom for their return

:: Thwart potential disciplinary action against rogue officers.

Fingerprint experts were called in as every square inch of Castlereagh was searched in an effort to find clues to the missing documents and establish how the three men - all unmasked - got into the building and the first floor office.

They would have had to produce some form of identification to get past guards, and also know special codes to unlock corridor doors to reach the only office to be manned around the clock.

A detective constable was on duty at the time. His door was opened before he was attacked - first struck on the face, hooded and then tied up. It was almost an hour before he managed to free himself.

But by that stage, the three men had grabbed several Special Branch note books detailing, times, places, telephone numbers, code words and critically - information supplied by a network of informers, mostly based in the greater Belfast area.

Detectives were also investigating the possibility the men may have been hiding inside the building for sometime. Another theory is that they sneaked in through a perimeter fence. But this, according to sources, is the least likely way they got in.

It is not known how they escaped, or if a car was waiting to pick them up in nearby streets of an overwhelmingly Protestant area.

The raided office is effectively a processing centre where every incoming call from informants, as well as MI5 and military intelligence, is logged before being passed on.

Renovation work was being carried out at Castlereagh by outside contractors and although they may be interviewed, the finger of suspicion was tonight pointed at the intelligence agencies.

It is their work which the external figure will scrutinise.

Sources insisted no case or intelligence files on major investigations such as the Omagh bomb or the murders of human rights lawyers Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson had been stolen.