SBP: FBI ARE OFF ROSEMARY CASE, DEAD LOYALIST TO BE BLAMED BY RUC Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit source: irsm@irsm.org SUNDAY BUSINESS POST 25/4-99 FBI ARE OFF ROSEMARY CASE, DEAD LOYALIST TO BE BLAMED BY RUC By Frank Doherty, The FBI is to play no further part in the investigation of the Rosemary Nelson murder, according to the officer who headed the four-person team sent to Ireland, Special Agent John Guido. In another development, The Sunday Business Post has learned that the RUC is preparing to charge two loyalists in connection with the Nelson murder. According to a source close to the joint investigation by two independent teams of British police officers and RUC detectives, the two suspects are associates of loyalist maverick Frankie Curry, shot dead on March 17, two days after the Nelson killing. Conveniently for the RUC, the late Curry is likely to be identified as the source of the sophisticated undercar bomb that killed Nelson. Curry is listed with an agent number in E3 files, indicating that he was an intelligence source for E depart-ment, the cryptic internal name of the RUC Special Branch. The E3 section at RUC headquarters is where intelligence is collated. It is not known if his handler was a member of E3 or the better known E4 unit which is concerned with Special Branch operations. Curry is believed to have arranged to have the under-car bomb which killed Nelson collected at a house on the Kilcooley housing estate in Bangor by one of the two suspects whom the RUC are ready to charge. At the time, he was serving a short jail sentence for driving while disqualified. He had access to phones and had visitors while in prison. He was shot dead by two gunmen two days after Rosemary Nelson was killed. He had been released from prison two days earlier. Early reports of his murder indicated that his assailants, who operated in broad daylight, did not even bother to wear masks. His death, and moves to charge two of his associates, may create a firewall which could prove impenetrable for any future outside investigators. It is believed the RUC will refuse to make available E3 source reports or computer files relating to Curry's contacts with RUC handlers on the grounds of security. Standard operating procedure for RUC Special Branch officers is that all contacts with a previously-recruited informer must be logged on a printed source report form known as an SB50. An agent identity number of several digits is used for secrecy & only the handler & the E3 collator have access to the name of the agent. It was from agent source report forms that a team of British officers headed by John Stephens discovered that Brian Nelson was an agent working inside the UDA. Nelson was later linked with the killing of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane. If charges are brought in the Rosemary Nelson case it could hinder attempts by independent investigators to discover if there was RUC collusion, since the matter would be sub-judice. One of those likely to be charged is believed to have been a leading figure in the Loyalist Volunteer Force, but is now operating as a member of the Red Hand Defenders. He was associated with the Red Hand Commandos in Bangor at one time. The middle-aged man is a leading figure in the dissident loyalist gangs who have continued to attack Catholic targets sporadically during the peace process, using an assortment of crudely-made pipe bombs and hand grenades imported in a large arms shipment from South Africa by agent Brian Nelson in the 1980s. The gangs, which use inter-changeable names, have puzzled mainstream loyalist groups, who believe that key figures work for either MI5 or the RUC. One loyalist leader said a number of paedophiles in the more extreme loyalist groups appear to have a charmed existence and have not been prosecuted for reported sex crimes. He said the groups were known on the Shankill Road as the Sex Pistols. The departure of the FBI from the Nelson murder inquiry will cause concern among some nationalists who had hoped that the US investigators would act as independent supervisors. An information technology specialist who flew to Belfast one week after the murder left a few days later.It is not known if he asked for access to computerised E department data at RUC headquarters. Special Agent Guido said he had offered the RUC access to the Bureau's Rapid Start computer facility. Chief Constable Sir Ronnie Flanagan said they already had such a facility through HOLMES, the Home Office crime investigation computer system. Guido said he had nothing to add to what he told a press conference in RUC headquarters on April 13, when he said the FBI had been afforded access to every facet of the investigation from the outset. It was not made clear at the press conference that the FBI was withdrawing its team from the investigation. Guido indicated then only that he had been "greatly impressed" by the efforts of RUC officers. He told The Sunday Business Post that FBI officers would take no further part in the Nelson investigation unless invited back by Sir Ronnie Flanagan. The investigation of the Nelson murder has had an erratic history. Initially, the Kent chief constable David Phillips was invited in by the RUC chief constable. After Taoiseach Bertie Ahern expressed confidence in the inquiry which was "being led" by Phillips, Kent police said he was merely "overseeing" it. The Sunday Business Post reported that Phillips had served on a Greater Manchester Police committee which had set up a secret unit which had spied on its own deputy chief constable, John Stalker, during his investigation of alleged RUC shoot-to-kill incidents. Flanagan, under considerable political pressure, subsequently asked Norfolk assistant chief constable Colin Port to head the inquiry. Port is now working with a team of 50 detectives, most of them RUC officers, on the investigation. Although he heads the inquiry, he reports directly to Flanagan. --- Eric Hayes Patkowski ehp@irsm.org P.O. Box 151805, Austin, Texas 78715-1805 http://irsm.org/ (Irish Republican Socialist Movement) http://www14.pair.com/jcs/ (James Connolly Society) Join the Industrial Workers of the World at http://www.iww.org/join/ Co-Editor, Working Stiff Journal ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytire-05.11.99-23:21:49-11448