A South Down UVF member, suspected of a sectarian killing in Belfast more than 30 years ago, is believed to have been recruited as an informer a year before the same unit carried out the Loughinisland atrocity.
Martin Lavery was shot dead in front of three of his children at his home on the Crumlin Road in December 1992.
It later emerged that a Browning 9mm used in the attack was recovered by the RUC after the murders of six men in the Heights Bar in Loughinisland in June 1994.
The case is featured in a damning Police Ombudsman report released in 2016
It has now emerged that one of Mr Lavery’s suspected killers was later recruited as an informer in 1993.
Mr Lavery’s murder has been linked to the same south Down UVF unit that carried out the Louginisland attack.
Details are revealed in a new book,’ Shooting Crows, Mass Murder, State Collusion and Press Freedom’, by journalist and film maker Trevor Birney.
The book reveals the extent of police collusion with loyalists and efforts by police to target investigative journalists.
Mr Birney reveals how members of the Lavery family were told by Police Ombudsman officials that one of the killers was recruited in 1993.
The information was provided in response to a question from solicitor Niall Murphy at a meeting between ombudsman officials and members of the Lavery family in 2016.
The 2016 ombudsman’s report referred to the attempted murder of John Henry Smyth in June 1993 in Castlewellan, which was subsequently linked by intelligence to the same UVF unit believed responsible for Loughinisland.
The killing of Martin Lavery in north Belfast, along with other attacks, also falls into that series of murders.
Mr Birney highlights that by the summer of 1993 police had a picture of the south Down UVF unit’s make up and activities.
The author added that “despite having all this crucial information and an intelligence source within the murder gang, police….took the decision that the killers should be allowed to remain free to kill”.
In his report then ombudsman Michael Maguire said that according to evidence of a police officer that the security forces in the Newcastle sub-division, in south Down, “had been compromised, principally from the UDR but also within the local RUC, through either direct involvement with loyalist paramilitaries, associations or sympathies”.
He confirmed that at least three individuals and their families directly associated with the UVF in south Down were also UDR members.
“They also had close family members working locally at RUC establishments and within the police force itself,” he added.
Mr Maguire said that intelligence was largely not passed on to investigators while RUC attention was focused on the IRA.
