SINN FÉIN and the SDLP have welcomed a ruling by the Belfast coroner yesterday that the PSNI chief constable must hand over the secret Stalker and Sampson reports into alleged RUC shoot-to-kill operations in 1982.
Coroner John Leckey gave the incoming new chief constable Matt Baggott seven weeks to hand over documents relating to the shooting dead of IRA men Gervaise McKerr, Eugene Toman and John Burns in Lurgan on November 11th, 1982; the shooting dead of Catholic teenager Michael Tighe near Craigavon on November 24th that year; and the killings of INLA suspects Seamus Grew and Roddy Carroll near Armagh city on December 12th, 1982. The RUC shootings happened shortly after three RUC officers were killed in an IRA landmine attack.
Mr Leckey, who has been given sight of documents, said they must be made available, even in redacted form, so that the inquests into the killings can get under way.
Investigations were carried out into the controversial killings by John Stalker, the then deputy chief constable of Manchester Police and, when he was removed from the case, by Colin Sampson of West Yorkshire Police.