AN IRA terrorist who claims he was involved in more than a dozen
killings while operating as a police informer was arrested yesterday.
Declan Casey, 39, was seized in Strabane, County Tyrone, just minutes
after RUC Chief Constable Sir Hugh Annesley insisted he had not been
free to kill while working for Special Branch.
Sir Hugh emphasised that his force would allow no life to be taken in
order to protect its intelligence system.
Casey made his claims to the Daily Mirror but Sir Hugh, while
confirming that Casey was once an RUC informer, refused to believe him.
He said: ''It is the primary duty of the RUC to protect life and the
suggestion that a police force with such vast experience in informant
handling would betray its principles, as inferred in the Daily Mirror
articles, has no basis in fact and I totally reject any such
suggestion.''
The Daily Mirror said later that officers from the RUC and the
Metropolitan Police had taken away all documents relating to the series
on Casey from the newspaper's London office.
Casey fled Northern Ireland last September for a new life near
Nottingham but returned to Strabane at the weekend disillusioned with
the isolation and anxious to see his wife Joan and four children.
He accepted that his return made him a target for the IRA but the RUC
reached him first. Casey was arrested at his father-in-law's home on
Strabane's fiercely republican Ballycolman estate.
Last night, he was being interrogated at Castlereagh, Belfast, by
police, including a chief superintendent heading a full-scale inquiry
into the affair.
Sir Hugh and Ulster Secretary Sir Patrick Mayhew discussed the
allegations at Stormont Castle yesterday. Outraged Unionists have
demanded that Casey be charged.
Ex-UDR soldier Mr David Pollock, 30, shot dead in September 1990 while
driving through Strabane to visit his girlfriend, was one of two victims
whom Casey claimed he warned the RUC about in advance.
The widow of another ex-UDR man allegedly murdered with Casey's help
said that she did not believe the allegations.
Mrs Kathleen Finlay's husband, Ronnie, from Sion Mills, near Strabane,
was killed two years ago. She said that her local police commander had
been directed by Sir Hugh to tell her there was no truth in the claims.
* Loyalist terrorists were last night blamed for a parcel bomb which
exploded at Post Office headquarters in Belfast.
Five similar devices were found in mail at the building's sorting
office and defused by the Army.
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