[A-List] UK state: Northern Ireland

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Finucane police 'posed as drug dealers'

Undercover officers went to 'murky' lengths to gain a murder confession,
loyalist's defence tells Belfast high court

Rosie Cowan, Ireland correspondent
Thursday June 5, 2003
The Guardian

Two undercover police officers from the Stevens inquiry posed as
international drug dealers to persuade loyalist Ken Barrett to admit the
murder of lawyer Pat Finucane, Belfast high court heard yesterday.

He is accused of being one of two gunmen who shot dead the Catholic defence
solicitor at his home in 1989. It remains one of the most controversial
crimes of the past 30 years in Northern Ireland because of persistent
allegations, recently confirmed by the Metropolitan police chief Sir John
Stevens, that a number of police and army officers colluded with the
terrorists who carried out the shooting.

Mr Barrett, arrested in England last week, allegedly intimated to one of the
undercover officers, known to him as Steve, that he had killed Finucane and
that the lawyer was an IRA man. The claim of IRA membership was strongly
refuted by the Stevens inquiry.

"It wasn't the first time I done it," he was quoted as saying in the covert
recordings. "He was an IRA man. He thought he couldn't be touched."

Mr Finucane wasn't just shot, he was "fucking massacred", according to Mr
Barrett, who apparently added: "I lose no sleep over it. I have to be
honest, I whacked a few people in the past. People say, how do you sleep,
Ken? I say, I sleep fine."

Mr Barrett's lawyer, Peter Irvine, accused the police of entrapment. He said
the undercover operation was "extremely murky" and the defence would
question it with regard to potential breaches of privacy laws under the
European convention on human rights.

Mr Barrett, 40, who appeared for the 90-minute hearing via video link from
Maghaberry jail, Co Antrim is also accused of membership of the UDA's sister
organisation, the Ulster Freedom Fighters, two attempted murders in 1991,
and the theft and handling of weapons from two army barracks in Northern
Ireland in 1987 and 1989. He has denied all charges, and in interviews with
the Metropolitan police in January and February last year he named other
people as Finucane's killers, although he claimed the lawyer was "up to his
neck in it [the IRA]" and tried to justify his murder.

Mr Barrett was refused bail on the grounds that his life could be at risk if
he was freed from custody and Lord Justice Campbell also thought there was a
possibility he could commit other offences.

The Stevens team whisked Mr Barrett and his family out of Belfast and put
them up in a safe house in England after the Ulster Defence Association shot
dead Billy Stobie, a UDA/special branch double agent in December 2001, a
fortnight after the case against him for supplying the weapons used in the
Finucane killing collapsed. Mr Barrett was also under threat from the UDA,
as a detective in the former RUC Johnston "Jonty" Brown had revealed he had
offered his services as a police informer and allegedly boasted of killing
Finucane in a covertly recorded conversation in 1991.

The Stevens team questioned Mr Barrett about Mr Brown's evidence in 1999 but
no charges were brought. Gordon Kerr QC, for the prosecution, said that
since Mr Barrett moved to England he had had conversations with the BBC
Panorama team, which they secretly filmed, and the Stevens team embarked on
a sophisticated covert surveillance operation.

This involved bugging Mr Barrett's house, recording conversations between
him and his partner, and also sending in two undercover police officers,
known as Steve and Tom, who pretended to be criminals in an attempt to gain
his trust.

Mr Irvine said a letter was pushed through Mr Barrett's door, offering him a
job as a chauffeur, which brought him into contact with Steve and Tom who
gave him tips of up to £200 and put him up in hotels around the country when
he drove them. They told him they ran a drugs empire in Germany and were
importing cocaine and cannabis into England.

Potential

Mr Irvine said the two officers told Mr Barrett that they had found out
about his connection to the Finucane case on the internet and suggested he
had the potential to become a hitman for their operation.

He claimed that they tried to entrap Mr Barrett but he was short of money
and was only playing along to keep them interested. "He was leading these
people on as much as they were leading him on," said the barrister.

Mr Barrett is also charged with the attempted murder of Thomas McCreery and
his wife, Elizabeth McEvoy, in 1991.

The court heard he told Steve that Mr McCreery "tried to have me whacked and
he missed. I didn't miss him. Unfortunately he lived, but he got what was
coming to him as far as I was concerned. The gun jammed. He was lucky."

He is also accused of the theft and handling of weapons, including Browning
pistols, SA80 rifles, light machine guns and a .38 Smith and Wesson
revolver, taken from Palace barracks, Holywood, Co Down, in 1987, and from
Malone barracks, Belfast in 1989. In a bugged conversation with his partner,
Mr Barrett apparently said: "I got weapons out of Palace barracks and I got
weapons out of the one in Malone. I didn't ask anyone else to do it. I went
and done it myself." He is also alleged to have argued with his partner over
whether or not she knew him when he killed Finucane. He told Panorama that
he obtained a photograph of Finucane from Brian Nelson, a UDA/army double
agent.

After his arrest on May 28, he refused to be interviewed at a Belfast police
station and submitted a statement in which he denied the allegations against
him, said the Panorama team paid him £1,300 so he told them what they
wanted, and accused police of setting him up with criminals.