SF leadership meet with Stevens Inquiry team

The Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams and the party's former education minister Martin McGuinness have met with the Stevens Inquiry team to discuss their targeting for assassination by loyalist paramilitaries.

The Stevens Inquiry, which was set up to investigate allegations of collusion between paramilitaries and the security services, asked the Sinn Fein MPs whether or not they had been informed of any plot and, if so, whether or not they had been given advice, help or assistance to take precautions in the event of an assassination attempt.

However, the West Belfast MP said that neither he, nor Mr McGuinness, had, to their recollections, been informed of such a plot "except through the broad media".

Following the meeting, Martin McGuinness said that both he and Gerry Adams had been targeted by British army agent Brian Nelson who was operating inside the UDA as its intelligence officer in 1980's.

Mr McGuinness said: "Both Gerry Adams and myself have been targeted at various times by Nelson, as have many other individuals.

"Neither of us were ever warned or informed of these threats to our lives, and in fact until the Stevens Inquiry, none of the policing services had contacted us about them."

Brian Nelson pleaded guilty to five charges of conspiracy to murder and 14 charges of possessing information useful to terrorists in January 1992. He was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, but his guilty plea meant that the actions of the security services would not be directly scrutinised in court.

Gerry Adams survived a loyalist murder attempt in 1984 after being badly wounded in a gun attack in Belfast city centre by UDA member John 'Grug' Gregg.

The Stevens team's was set up in 1989 to investigate allegations of collusion over a number of cases, but particularly in relation to the murder of Catholic solicitor Pat Finucane in 1989. Both MP's said they were also interviewed as part of investigations into the killing of solicitor Pat Finucane.

The Stevens Report was due to be published this autumn however it had to he put back to the New Year as investigation continued. Then last month the team arrested a man in relation to the murder.

(MB)