Informants fears 'could hinder terror fight'
Police in the North are facing difficulties recruiting informants because they can no longer guarantee their identities will not be revealed to inquiries, Chief Constable Hugh Orde warned today.
Constable Hugh warned that the issue could affect the ability of security forces on the mainland to sign up their own informants in the fight against international Islamist terror.
He insisted that the threat of murder of those exposed as alleged informants remained real in the North, despite paramilitary ceasefires. In 2006, former IRA man Denis Donaldson was murdered after admitting having given information to police.
The chief constable has recently raised concern that he is being placed under conflicting legal obligations both to protect informers and to provide inquiries – such as Lord Saville’s Bloody Sunday tribunal – with whatever evidence they want to see.
As an inquiry into the killing of former loyalist terror boss Billy Wright approaches, he has indicated that he is talking to his lawyers about the possible use of Public Interest Immunity Certificates to protect informers’ identities.
Constable Orde today told BBC Radio 4’s The World at One: “This is about people who have critical evidence in the most serious crimes of terrorism and international terrorism feeling they can give that information to the police service as an informant and their identity will be protected from everyone else forever.
“If they don’t have that confidence, people will not come forward and give us what is essential if we are to deal with the most serious cases and protect the lives of people in the UK and beyond.
“Are people going to step forward and give us that information in the knowledge that I can’t prevent that identity going outside my control to other bodies and agencies?”
