Wright Inquiry 'Goes Wrong'

The campaigning dad of murdered loyalist Billy Wright is facing further frustration today as news emerges that the official Inquiry into the prison murder of his son has been forced to postpone hearing evidence from the police.

It is understood the police failed to hand over information from a joint army and RUC Special Branch surveillance operation against the INLA in 1997.

It is believed the decision to kill Billy Wright was taken at one of the meetings secretly monitored during that period.

Serving and former police officers were due to be questioned about this operation at the inquiry in November.

But the Inquiry Chairman Lord MacLean announced on Monday that their questioning has been postponed because of "unexpected and unavoidable delays".

Lord MacLean said the inquiry would continue its work and he hoped to hear the police evidence early next year.

Billy Wright was shot dead in December 1997, killed by three INLA inmates, who were housed in the same H Block of the prison.

At an earlier hearing the Inquiry revealed that a police informer was suspected of smuggling a gun to one of Wright's killers, Christopher 'Crip' McWilliams, in prison sometime before the murder.

In January, a report detailed the PSNI's inability to produce some evidence, and other major gaps in intelligence, including reports on the surveillance of known INLA leaders who were suspected of the plot, was revealed.

The Security Service, along with the Army, had been seeking a restriction notice to prevent some documents being made public, while the in Inquiry was reluctant to do so.

They reached a compromise in which the evidence will be summarised and the original documents will not be produced.

The inquiry had been plagued by significant gaps in the documentary evidence, including the destruction of thousands of prison files. The Maze security files on Wright and two of his killers are among the missing documents.

See: Wright Inquiry Quizzes MI5 'Spook'