By Brendan Anderson

POLICE officers and locally-recruited British soldiers helped Loyalist killers carry out 74 sectarian murders in the first decade of the Irish Troubles, legal experts have found.

The scathing report into collusion between British security forces and paramilitaries was compiled by a four-member panel headed by Professor Douglass Cassel of Notre Dame Law School, Indiana.

The panel, at the request of the Pat Finucane Center in Derry, investigated 76 killings carried out between 1972 and 1977. They found evidence of collusion in 74 cases. With most of the murders remaining unsolved, and in many cases not even investigated, the perpetrators felt free to continue killing for many more years.

At launch of their report in Belfast Monday, Professor Cassel’s panel maintained that senior police and army officers knew of the killings but failed to take action. The team called on the British government to announce an independent investigation into the collusion.

Many of the killings were linked by forensic, ballistic and witness evidence indicating clear security forces involvement. The panel highlighted one case in which four Royal Ulster Constabulary (forerunners of the Police Service of Northern Ireland) officers were convicted of a gun and bomb attack on a bar used by Nationalists near Keady, Co. Armagh.

Three officers walked free from court while the fourth, already serving a life sentence for a sectarian murder, was given a prison sentence. The weapons used in the attack, a Luger pistol and a 9mm sub-machinegun, had been used in the killing of three Catholic brothers five months previously.

In its report, the panel said, “Credible evidence indicates that superiors of violent, extremist officers and agents, at least within the RUC, were aware of their sectarian crimes, yet failed to act to prevent, investigate or punish them. On the contrary, they allegedly made statements that appeared to condone participation in these crimes.

“As early as 1973, senior officials of the United Kingdom were put on notice of the danger, and indeed some of the facts, of sectarian violence by UDR (Ulster Defense Regiment) soldiers using stolen UDR weapons and ammunition, and supported by UDR training and information.

“At least by 1975, senior officials were also informed that some RUC police officers were ‘very close’ to extremist paramilitaries.”

Professor Cassel said the British government should initiate an inquiry to uncover the “full depth and full breadth and height of collusion.”

He said he believed a Historical Enquiries Team (HET), a team of detectives set up to deal with unsolved cases, would not be able to “get to the truth.” Cassel added that HET did not meet UN standards because its findings would not be made public.

“There’s enough evidence, easily accessible in the public domain, to reach the conclusion that we reached, that there was substantial collusion, but there is a great deal that we have not seen. There is a great deal more that should be done, but we are not suggesting that it is the Historical Enquiries Team that should do the digging. The Historical Enquiries Team by itself, in our judgment, is not a sufficient vehicle to get to the truth,” he said.

However, Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde said the panel did not meet or consult directly with the HET.

“I would invite them to come and see for themselves how the investigations and work with the (victims’) families are progressing,” he said.

Copies of the 108-page report have been passed to the British government and the North’s Police Ombudsman (complaints commissioner). The British government said it would be inappropriate to comment as the murders were the subject of inquiries by a number of agencies including the European Court of Human Rights, the PSNI Historical Enquiries Team and the Police Ombudsman.

The panel traveled to Dublin Tuesday where they were expected to urge the Irish government to investigate a claim by a former RUC officer that Gardai (Irish police) “were not cooperative” in bringing to justice suspects who fled across the border.

The panel members were Professor Cassel, Susie Kemp, an international lawyer based in The Hague, Holland, Piers Pigou, investigator for the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and Stephen Sawyer of Northwestern University School of Law, Chicago.

Cassel’s panel examined 25 incidents on both sides of the border. These included:

*The murder of 33 people in UVF (Ulster Volunteer Force) bomb attacks in Dublin and Monaghan in May 1974.

*The shooting of three members of the Miami Showband by a UVF gang posing as an Ulster Defense Regiment patrol which flagged their bus down in July 1975,

*The killing of Patrick Connolly in October 1972 in a grenade attack on his Portadown home by the Ulster Volunteer Force,

*The murder by the UVF of Catholic Patrick Molloy, 46, and Protestant Jack Wylie, 49, in a bomb attack at Augenlig, Co. Armagh,

*The shooting dead of six men in separate UVF gun attacks on two families in Co. Armagh in January 1976.