Senior PSNI officer to elaborate on new files

PSNI assistant chief constable Drew Harris is to give evidence to the Smithwick Tribunal in closed session next week.

Mr Harris will elaborate on 12 new intelligence reports relating to alleged Garda-IRA collusion, about which parties at the tribunal received details in recent days.

The new information from the PSNI follows five additional intelligence reports delivered to the tribunal, also by the PSNI, in July.

The combined 17 pieces of information may prompt tribunal chairman Judge Peter Smithwick to seek another extension of the tribunal’s deadline beyond October 31st.

The tribunal is investigating allegations of Garda-IRA collusion in the murders of two RUC officers, Chief Supt Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan, who were ambushed after they left a meeting in Dundalk Garda station in 1989,

Solicitor James McGuill, for Finbarr Hickey, one of three former members of Dundalk gardaí represented at the tribunal, said yesterday at the tribunal that it “may have to embark on a rehearing of the entire evidence in the case”.