Flanagan not aware of police threats against Nelson

Former RUC chief constable Ronnie Flanagan has told the Rosemary Nelson inquiry in Belfast that he had no knowledge of threats made against her by police officers until a UN official drew it to his attention.

Mr Flanagan is being questioned for a second day today as part of the inquiry into the murder of the Lurgan solicitor in a loyalist car bomb in March 1999.

The inquiry is examining claims that the police colluded with the loyalists who carried out the attack.

Five months before she was murdered, British-Irish Rights Watch raised concerns with Mr Flanagan, claiming some officers had made death threats against her.

The group claimed the officers had also engaged in "vile abuse", some of it sexual in character.

The lead lawyer for the tribunal suggested today that Mr Flanagan's reply to these reports had been "brisk" and even "dismissive".