Nigel Wylde on collusion

Potentially very significant story from Colm Heatley at the weekend:

A former senior British Army intelligence officer has claimed that his military career in the North was ended after he raised objections about the murder of a Catholic man in Co Armagh, which he believes was carried out in collusion with loyalist paramilitaries.

Lieutenant Colonel Nigel Wylde, who served in the North during the early to mid-1970s, told The Sunday Business Post the murder was carried out after information was passed from the British Army to a loyalist gang who then shot dead an innocent Catholic with no political connections. (Sunday Business Post)

Lt Col Wylde has offered to testify to the McEntee inquiry into the Dublin-Monaghan bombings of 1974.

This inquiry is due to report in the near future, and is likely to raise issues of state collusion with loyalists during the mid-1970s.

The Police Ombudsman's report on the Killing of Raymond McCord Jr in 1997 is also due soon, and may raise the spectre of collusion in the 1990s.

One cannot help but wonder about the impact of these reports on the very sensitive debate currently underway about policing and the role of MI5 in Northern Ireland.