Military dealings with loyalists revealed

Sir John Stevens’s findings that senior police and military officers were involved in plots to kill civilians, including the solicitor Pat Finucane, who represented IRA men, could not have been delivered at a more crucial point.

The Irish and British governments are on the brink of suspending attempts to restore devolution to Belfast as hopes fade that the IRA will issue a make-or-break statement that their war is over.

The investigation by Sir John, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, into claims of collusion was the biggest criminal inquiry in British history. Its results will be deeply embarrassing to the security forces, whose reputation is already low in nationalist communities.

The report also found that military intelligence gathering and its outcomes helped to prolong the Troubles.

It shone a spotlight on the so-called "dirty war", which saw senior intelligence officers and British military agents - led by Special Branch and MI5 - undertake covert operations against the IRA in the Eighties and early Nineties.

Of the killing of Mr Finucane and Brian Lambert, a Protestant student, Sir John said: "I conclude there was collusion in both murders, and the circumstances surrounding them.

"Collusion is evidenced in many ways. This ranges from the wilful failure to keep records, the absence of accountability, the withholding of intelligence and evidence, to the extreme of agents being involved in murder. These serious acts and omissions have meant that people have been killed or seriously injured."

And, in a further damning indictment of the security forces, Sir John’s report - his third since he was first brought in to examine claims of collusion in 1989 - detailed how his investigation had been obstructed.

Sir John said that his three investigations had been "wilfully obstructed and misled".

The outcome of the Stevens report could lead to the prosecution of several senior army and police figures at the heart of covert operations.

Among those are Brigadier Gordon Kerr, a Scot who is now the military attach in Beijing and who commanded a covert army unit in Northern Ireland in the Eighties and Nineties.

Sir John said: "I have uncovered enough evidence to lead me to believe that the murders of Pat Finucane and Brian Adam Lambert could have been prevented.

"I also believe that the RUC investigation of Patrick Finucane’s murder should have resulted in the early arrest and detection of his killers."

Mr Finucane was murdered in front of his family by gunmen in 1989. His three children have been campaigning for a public inquiry into their father’s death, but have so far been denied.

Sinn Fein yesterday called for a full international judicial inquiry.

Alex Maskey, the party’s Lord Mayor of Belfast, said: "This is not about rogue elements within the British system. It is about a state policy sanctioned at the highest level."

In a short summary of his 3,000-page report, Sir John made 21 recommendations to safeguard the integrity of future intelligence operations in Northern Ireland.

These included a call for the Police Service of Northern Ireland to carry out a full review of all procedures for investigating terrorist offences.

The effects of collusion spread to the government, the report said, and meant that a minister had been "compromised" in the Commons.

This was Douglas Hogg, who, in 1989, told MPs there was evidence that some solicitors in Northern Ireland were "unduly sympathetic to the cause of the IRA". Sir John said yesterday this was categorically not the case, yet within weeks of Mr Hogg’s comments, Mr Finucane was dead.

Only 20 pages of Sir John’s lengthy report were published yesterday because of the possibility of future legal action.

However, this was greeted with fury by the Finucane family and human rights campaigners who called it a whitewash.

Hugh Orde, Ulster’s police chief, said strict safeguards were today in place to prevent similar collusion ever occurring again.

THE STEVENS INQUIRY: MURDER THAT SPARKED A 14-YEAR INVESTIGATION

February 1989 - Pat Finucane is shot dead and his wife Geraldine injured.

September 1989 - John Stevens, then Cambridgeshire deputy chief constable, is appointed to investigate breaches of security by the security forces.

1992 - UDA intelligence officer and former soldier Brian Nelson is revealed as an army agent who tipped off his handlers about a plan to kill Mr Finucane during a trial.

1993 - Stevens Inquiry is followed by "Stevens Two". The Director of Public Prosecutions asks for further investigations.

April 1998 - The government rejects a call by the UN for an independent inquiry.

April 1999 - Mr Stevens, by then the Met deputy commissioner, begins his third investigation, "Stevens Three".

June 1999 - Former Ulster Defence Association quartermaster, William Stobie, is charged with the murder of Mr Finucane.

April 2002 - Retired Canadian judge, Peter Cory, is appointed to carry out an inquiry into six murders where there were allegations of security force collusion.

He is yet to report on his findings.

May 2002 - Hugh Orde, in day-to-day control of the Stevens Inquiry into the Finucane murder, is appointed as Northern Ireland’s new Chief Constable.

April 2003 - Stevens, now Sir John, hands over his report.