Special branch break-in tops Adams-Blair summit agenda
The break-in and theft of documents from Special Branch offices in Belfast will top the agenda when Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams meets the British Prime Minister today.
The Downing Street discussions come after Northern Ireland police chief Sir Ronnie Flanagan gave the strongest hint yet that he believed the brazen break-in a week ago was an inside job by rogue intelligence officers.
He said he would be ‘‘most surprised’’ if paramilitaries or civilians were responsible.
But equally he considered it ‘‘impossible’’ that the robbery, during which a police officer was restrained and tied up, had been given official sanction by any military or intelligence agency.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland today refused to comment on reports that the CCTV camera system which could have filmed the raiders at the Castlereagh Police Complex in east Belfast was not connected to video recording equipment.
A spokeswoman said it would be ‘‘inappropriate’’ to comment ahead of the completion of the police criminal investigation or the review ordered by Northern Ireland Secretary Dr John Reid.
The PSNI were equally silent on claims that police investigating the break-in believe it was carried out by three members of military intelligence in a daring bid to seize documents which would identify an informant.
The Chief Constable, however, was adamant he did not believe it could not have been an officially sanctioned intelligence operation.
He said: ‘‘It is a most serious criminal offence to incapacitate someone and falsely hold them in detention.
‘‘It is an aggravated burglary of the most serious nature so I can’t contemplate that this would have been sanctioned at any level by anyone in any official position.
‘‘This is such a serious criminal act that anyone involved would be guilty of equally serious offences as those who carried it out.’’
In an interview with Belfast’s Sunday Life newspaper, the Chief Constable said the office raided contained limited information and that increased the mystery surrounding the raid.
‘‘If you knew no more than that this was a Special Branch base and believed that this office was the hub of that base, you might have expected that there would be much more stored there.
‘‘There isn’t, and this is the conundrum. Was this carried out by people who expected to get more and did they leave disappointed?’’
There was to date a lack of intelligence about that point. ‘‘The problem with this investigation is that there are so many lines of inquiry.
‘‘At this stage we have no intelligence information to narrow down those lines of inquiry, so nothing is being ruled out and every possibility is being considered at this stage,’’ he said.
Just what was taken and whether it puts the lives of any republicans in danger, will be what Mr Adams, accompanied by Martin McGuinness, will be seeking to discover when he meets Tony Blair in Downing Street at noon tomorrow.
