SDLP calls for public inquiry into collusion

The SDLP leader, Mr Mark Durkan, today repeated his party's call for a public inquiry into claims that British military intelligence connived in the planning and execution of murders in order to protect its sources of information.

Mr Durkan said it was "clearly evident" that British Intelligence "did literally control terrorism on a number of levels, that they actually conspired to direct particular murders by particular organisations and in other cases they failed to intervene in circumstances where they could have intervened."

Mr Durkan repeated his call for a full public inquiry in the activities of the British army's highly secret Force Research Unit.

Mr Durkan's comments come following the naming of an alleged British army informer who operated in the top echelons of the IRA. The man at the centre of the claims, Mr Freddie Scappaticci, this week publicly denied the allegation.

Nationalist politicians have called on the British government to order a judicial inquiry into collusion between loyalist paramilitaries and intelligence officers in the RUC and British army.

Last month, the London Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir John Stevens, produced a damning report on collusion between the Northern Ireland security forces and loyalist paramilitary organisations during the 1980s and 1990s.

The interim report, which took 14 years to compile, found that secret co-operation by the RUC Special Branch and British military intelligence ranged from a wilful failure to keep records, to the absence of accountability, the withholding of intelligence and evidence, through to the extreme of its agents being involved in murder.