Responsibility for the destruction of security files on hundreds of former paramilitary prisoners in the former Maze prison was yesterday laid at the feet of a Northern Ireland prison governor who has since died.
The public inquiry into allegations of state collusion in the murder of Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) leader Billy Wright inside the Maze in 1997 was told there is no written record of the order for the destruction of the key documents.
The inquiry, chaired by Lord MacLean, is holding a week-long preliminary hearing concerned solely with the recovery of certain documents. It is seeking specific documents relating to the Maze Prison at the time Wright was murdered by three INLA inmates.
The preliminary hearings were called because the inquiry team was having difficulty getting the documents from the Northern Ireland Prison Service.
Under questioning yesterday, Maureen Johnson, a junior governor at Maghaberry Prison, which took over as Northern Ireland's main jail after the Maze was closed down, said she had been told in late 2001 or 2002 by the prison governor Martin Mogg to destroy the files on 800 inmates who had been held in the Maze but released under the Belfast Agreement.
The files destroyed included those on the three INLA men convicted of murdering Wright.
Mrs Johnson said Mr Mogg, who has since died, told her to get rid of the files during a meeting in her cramped office at Maghaberry, where she was employed in the prisoner security department.
She said Mr Mogg cited the Freedom of Information Act and Data Protection Act, which at the time had just been passed, and said the files should be destroyed. - (PA)