Barry McCaffery - Irish News, 2nd December 2003
RUC Special Branch officers handed over a gun to the UDA which was later used in six murders, retired Canadian judge Peter Cory's report is expected to reveal.
A Browning 9mm pistol used in six murders had been in the possession of the RUC's Special Branch for two weeks before it was handed back to the UDA and used in two gun attacks.
Reliable sources last night suggested that Peter Cory's reports into security force collusion with loyalists would point to evidence that Special Branch took possession of the Browning 9mm pistol from UDA quartermaster Billy Stobie in late 1989 but two weeks later returned the weapon to the UDA without any apparent attempt to track its movements.
Two years later masked UDA men burst into the Devenish Arms in west Belfast on December 22 1991 and used the Browning pistol to shoot at customers.
Twenty-two-year-old Catholic man Aidan Wallace was shot dead.
Three others were seriously injured, including eight-year-old Christopher Lawless, who was shot in the face and lost an eye after gunmen spotted him hiding underneath a table.
Less than three months later two UDA gunmen, one armed with the same Browning pistol, burst into Sean Graham's bookmakers on the Ormeau Road and fired nearly 50 shots into the crowded shop.
Five people, including 15-year-old schoolboy James Kennedy and 66-year-old pensioner Jack Duffin, were killed in the attack.
Mark Sykes, who was shot four times in the attack, and whose 18-year-old cousin Peter Magee was shot dead alongside him, said he was not surprised by the news.
"What is unbelievable is that police could have had a gun in their possession and handed it back to the UDA to murder six more people," he said.
"What is shocking is that they must have known this for 12 years and totally covered it up."
Aidan Wallace's mother Betty said she was shocked that the weapon which killed her son may now turn out to have been in police hands.
"You can never forget Aidan but you try to get on with life as best you can," she said.
"What is hard to accept is that no-one was ever charged or convicted with Aidan's murder.
"The police came two years later and said they'd arrested two men with the gun which killed Aidan.
"They never came back to tell us if they were charged or let go. I've never heard from police again to this day.
"If it does turn out that police had this gun in their possession and gave it back then that is just unforgivable, totally unforgivable."
Police last night refused to make any comment in regard to Mr Cory's report or the Browning 9mm pistol.
Barry McCaffery - Irish News, 2nd December 2003
A report delivered to the British government by retired Canadian judge Peter Corey is understood to include evidence that Special Branch allowed a gun in police custody to be handed back to the UFF, which was subsequently used in six murders.
Judge Cory's report is believed to include evidence that Special Branch officers returned a 9mm Browning pistol to UDA quartermaster and police informer Billy Stobie in late 1989, which was subsequently used in two gun attacks in Belfast which left six people dead.
While it had previously been known that the 9mm pistol, thought to have been part of a batch of weapons stolen by the UDA from British army bases in August 1987, had been used in gun attacks on the Devenish Arms in west Belfast in 1991 and three months later at a south Belfast bookmakers, it had not been known that Special Branch had the weapon in their possession in late 1989 and had given it back to the UDA.
Before he was murdered by the UFF in 2001, Billy Stobie had revealed how, in 1989, he was told by his Special Branch handlers to bring all the weapons in his possession to Knocknagoney RUC station in east Belfast to be inspected.
It is understood that Stobie handed over two Heckler and Kochs, two Browning pistols and two Uzi submachine guns to his handlers for a two-week period.
The traditional police procedure was to bug the weapons, known as jarking, so that police could trace any subsequent movement of the guns and prevent them being used.
However no effort appears to have been made to bug the 9mm Browning.
Shortly after they were returned in late October or early November 1989, Stobie was told by his UDA superiors to supply two weapons for a murder bid.
However the attack was aborted when the weapons failed to fire and Stobie discovered that his handlers had filed down the weapons' firing pins, rendering them useless.
According to Stobie, he was then ordered by his UDA superiors to produce the suspect guns.
Fearing that he was about to be exposed, Stobie contacted his Special Branch handlers who mounted a police operation to make it appear that he had been forced to dump the bag of weapons over a wall after being spotted by a uniformed patrol.
However, although Special Branch appeared to have saved Stobie's life, no effort was made to recover the weapons and they were used again on Sunday December 22 1991 when UFF gunmen opened fire on lunchtime patrons at the Devenish Bar in west Belfast.
Catholic civil servant Aidan Wallace died after he was shot twice in the head by a UFF gunman as he played snooker at the west Belfast bar.
Three other customers were injured, including eight-year-old Christopher Lawless, who lost an eye after he was shot in the face by the gunmen.
Less than three months later the same Browning 9mm pistol was used when UFF gunmen burst into Sean Graham's bookmakers on the Ormeau Road in south Belfast and shot five people dead, including a 15-year-old schoolboy and a 68-year-old grandfather.
Police last night refused to comment on the history of the 9mm pistol or to confirm whether it has ever been recovered.
But Panorama journalist John Ware last night claimed that the allegation that police could have saved six people's lives, by not allowing the gun to fall back into the hands of the UFF, was not a unique incident.
"I am told that a number of weapons, under the control of RUC Special Branch, were given back to different agents (within the UDA) which led to fatal results," he said.
"Sources, who I view as extremely reliable, have confirmed to me that the Browning 9mm pistol used at the Devenish Arms and in Sean Grahams' bookmakers had been in the possession of RUC Special Branch and was handed back to Billy Stobie."
Mr Ware questioned the legality of allowing the weapon to be returned from police custody into the hands of UFF killers.
"As far as I am aware it is against the law for police to allow a weapon back into circulation," he said.
"The only way it could be mitigated was if it was being properly monitored, which they plainly didn't do."