12/11/2013 Spotlight

Tonight, dispatches from the covert war between the security forces and

dissident republicans. And we ask, who is winning the war in the

shadows? These days, political violence is

supposed to be a thing of the past. But not everybody wants it that way.

From hoaxes to bombs, from mortars to murder. Dissident Republicans are

capable of being ruthless. The dissidents are back, bringing

disruption to the streets. All they need is one success and one success

will bring mayhem to the country. There is nothing in this world that

can prepare you for that. They took away my future. But MI5 says it has

a plan to keep the pressure on. These people will eventually either

give up or piquant. It is a battle, fought in secret, relying on

intelligence. But is this what success looks like? I do not think

that anybody here would expect me to be grateful. Some of the most

serious cases of dissidents terrorism remain unsolved. So how

successful is this secret war and do victories on the ground resist --

damage secret policing? I'm going to Northern Ireland's high security

prison, to meet a man officially classified as one of the country's

most dangerous dissident Republicans. Martin Corry is a

63-year-old man from Lurgan. He was a grave-digger until 2010, when he

was arrested at his home. He may not be the most high-profile Republican

in Northern Ireland, but nowadays, his image is plastered, posted and

painted across the heartlands of Northern Ireland. He is a convicted

killer, freed on licence but then put back in prison on the basis of

secret evidence. Martin Corey's family maintained that he does not

know the specifics of the charges against him but from the court

papers we have seen, it is possible to get an insight. He is accused of

papers we have seen, it is possible being a continued IRA leader, of

trying to recruit members and procure weapons. But he has not been

questions, and has not faced trial for any of it. He has been there for

three and a half years. If he has committed a crime, but the charges

to him. So what is so sensitive about Martin Corey's alleged

dissident terrorist activity, and why can it not be made public? I am

on my way to find out from the man himself. Martin Corey was originally

jailed 40 years ago for the murders of two RUC officers, ambushed by the

IRA. He was released in 1992 of two RUC officers, ambushed by the

licence, winning that if he breached certain conditions, the government

could return him to prison. 18 years later, that is what they did. They

revoked his licence, because they felt that he was a risk to society.

Who felt that he was a risk to society? The law is the law. Nobody

is above it or beyond it. Everybody has the right for their day in

court. Martin Corey's licence was revoked on the basis of an

intelligent smile submitted by the security service. A judge said that

that procedure was unfair and ruled that Martin Corey should be freed on

bail. That decision has been overturned and he is still inside. A

handful of people have seen the secret in Telecom

handful of people have seen the Corey. I would be aware of all the

material in respect to that case. I am satisfied that it was sufficient

that the revocation of his licence should be examined. It has also been

seen by a security cleared lawyer. As recently as yesterday. But the

substance of the allegations against him remains hidden. This case tests

the traditional standards of justice against the needs of an intelligence

war. For most people, justice means evidence tested in open court. But

intelligence agencies want to keep their secrets in order to disrupt

terrorist groups. And when they get the upper hand, the question is, in

the long term, will it make things better or worse? Taking Martin Corey

off the street has led to Republicans coming onto the

streets, and that gives Sinn Fein's opponents the potential to start up

a Republican base. Secret evidence is wrong, regardless of what reason

they give for it. Secret evidence and secret police, that is the stuff

you want to relegate to history. That should not be happening in a

normal society. Sinn Fein supports the campaign to release Martin

Corey, not least because they argue that actions like this detention

undermine national list confidence in policing. We have seen a number

of high-profile cases. We are seeing policing being polluted, and the

undermining of confidence. policing being polluted, and the

is to enforce policing. It is not helped by the interference of MI5

and imaginations. -- their machinations. The difficulty for

Sinn Fein is that it highlights an issue that is at and Republicans use

against them, the fact that most sensitive security matters remain

with London. The PSNI has the operational lead against dissident

Republicans meaning that they carry out arrests and investigations. But

MI5 is in charge of gathering intelligence. People sleep easier in

their bed at night in Northern Ireland because we have people

watching, listening, observing what is going on. There are people alive

in Northern Ireland today, even in recent months, because the security

services were able to intercept what the dissidents were up to and were

able to prevent terrorist attacks. The Security service is the official

name for what is more commonly known as MI5. It was put in charge of

intelligence gathering on dissidents because the threat is considered a

matter of UK national-security. But Nationalist critics say that MI5's

reputation during the troubles means it cannot be trusted. It is very

important in a situation like Northern Ireland, where there is a

history of abuse, that the control and current ability mechanisms

should be here within Northern Ireland, not outside. And we do not

have that here as far as intelligence gathering is concerned.

This building is the heart of MI5 in Northern Ireland. At the last Kent,

it had about 500 employees. It is about a fifth of the organisation's

total resources. What that is in pounds and pence is a state secret.

All that effort is being pumped into what one former head of MI5 called a

strategy to squeeze the energy from the dissidents by 2015. They are

operating a policy of disruption. They are not necessarily that keen

on filling jail cells full of people for all sorts of different

offences. They are more keen on planting the seeds of dissent. The

question is, is it working? It seemed to in the summer as headline

events went off without a hitch. seemed to in the summer as headline

in recent weeks, there has been a resurgence in dissident attacks,

forcing people from their homes and taking life on the streets.

According to MI5's new boss, who used to run the Northern Ireland

operation, the security forces are winning. The number of terrorist

attacks in Northern Ireland is diminishing as we crack down and the

number of people in the courts is going up. Another dissident groups

have been closely monitored by the security services and the PSNI. That

has significantly restricted their capacity to engage in the type of

high-level terrorist activity that they would like to be engaged in.

Secret surveillance and undercover operations are a key element in the

strategy to squeeze them. Michael Campbell was jailed in Lithuania for

trying to buy weapons in an MI5 sting. He was cleared last month

when a judge ruled he had been entrapped, but even though his

conviction fell, the operation appears to have advanced MI5's

strategy because it's so is doubt about the dissidents. It is as much

a psychological war as anything else. Michael Campbell, his

conviction was overturned. But if you are in the real IRA you are

reluctant to engage in any act of tea with somebody you do not know.

Yet, they have continued to strike. The murder of a prison officer,

David lacked was a chilling and unpredicted attack. His killers came

from a new IRA, said to be a particularly dangerous alliance of

dissidents. But we have learned that group has already fractured, in part

because of distrust about which members are compromised by working

for the intelligence services. The dissident groups at the moment are

fragmented. They have had a project to create a new IRA. That has effect

every ended now. With had not worked out. A lot of these people, even

within individual groups don't trust one another any more. The group

within individual groups don't trust behind David Black's murder has been

damaged, but no one has been convict did. That failure raises questions

about whether disruption really works alongside securing

convictions. And which of those is MI5's priority. David lacked's case

is not the only one unresolved. Nobody has been convicted of the

murder of police constable, Roman care. When you see them walking out

smiling, it is a smack in the mouth to ordinary people. The lack of

conviction for David lack an Ronan Kerr, what does that point to? We

have convictions for possession of explosions and firearms. We work

hard at preventing attacks happening. Right now the most

significant remaining dissident conviction, that of two men for the

murder of PC Stephen Carol hangs in the balance. The Court of Appeal is

considering the convictions of John Paul Wotton and Brendan McConvill.

What happened on the night of the murder brought the night -- Secret

Service is out of the shadows, laying bare the potential tension

between intelligence agencies and their need to gather information,

against the police's their need to gather information,

evidence fit for open court. Stephen Carol was shot dead almost four

years ago when he came to this Craigavon housing estate to

investigate a broken window. They took away my future, as they have

done to other people. They did not care whether they killed one

policeman, my husband, or whether they killed how many in that car.

The extraordinary thing about Stephen Carol's murder is that at

the very moment he was shot, a secret surveillance operation was

already underway. But some of the evidence from that operation has

disappeared entirely, for reasons no one has explained. At the time of

the killing, a car belonging to John Paul Wotton was being trailed. A

sophisticated, covert tracking device was hidden in the cart

beaming out its location every two minutes. It had been placed by a

secret army units, probably a special reconnaissance Regiment.

According to the judge, at PSNI investigator could not get their

hands on the tracker information immediately after the killing. Some

of the data was handed over to investigated -- investigators two

weeks after the murder, but it was four months until detect this could

get the actual device from the Army and only after they threatened to

get a warrant. Security services should cooperate where evidence they

held would assist the police. should cooperate where evidence they

that is not happening, that is something that I as a member of

Parliament would be concerned about. The data showed the car had parked

near the murder scene before the killing. But ten minutes after

Stephen Carol were shot, it was on the move. Over the next three hours,

the cart moved around Craigavon, making four separate stops. At

trial, the prosecution alleged he was transporting Stephen Carol's

killer. The tracker's readings said it stop here at 1:15am. We know the

cart was moved after that, but information from the tracker stops

here. According to the judge there was no data after 1:15am.

That left a gap of more than 14 hours between the last known

movements of the car and be addressed the next day. I gap

created because someone had deleted the tracker's data. The soldier who

placed the tracker told the court he had taken it out of the car after

the arrest and left it on the table while he went on leave. When he came

back, the tracker had been deliberately wiped, including the

data on the car's last movements. But no one could explain why. If

there is a suggestion evidence was wiped, that sounds to me like gross

incompetence. Or it could we more sinister. It could be that the

evidence was removed to cover somebody, to protect somebody. I

don't know, I don't know the inside story. But the kindest words with

the gross incompetence. But if you look on the other side of the coin,

is it a cover up? Sinn Fein said the actions of the intelligence unit

undermined the PSNI, a police force they support. They remain deeply

sceptical about the methods and object is of British intelligence.

In my opinion they know exactly why it was wiped. But the underlying

point is this is a modem -- modus operandi of MI5. An army unit had a

tracker on John Paul Wotton's car, did the PSNI know about that? Yes we

did, and we had control of that entire operation from start to

finish. Do you know information was wiped? No, because by that time

there was a huge police operation in place and I am convinced I had

access to all material and there is no ulterior motive or other agenda

running in respect of this. Something had been deleted? I cannot

say I was pleased about that, but we went down other evidential routes to

prove the actual movements of that particular vehicle. For

nationalists, the presence of a secret army reconnaissance unit is

controversial, made worse by the apparent absence of independent

scrutiny of its activities here. That is because of a specific legal

loophole. The UK's secret intelligence gatherers, including

MI5 are sub host to a range of watchdog bodies and commissioners. A

key figure is the intelligence services Commissioner who oversees

the conduct of MI5 and others. But he is specifically prevented from

investigating Ministry of Defence personnel in Northern Ireland and

that means the undercover army unit that lost the tracker's data. The

former independent overseer of UK terror law says he is not aware of

the detail of the case, but the tracker should not have been wiped.

If anything was deliberately deleted, it should not have been

deleted at all. It is the only deleted, it should not have been

useful comment I can make. The police and security service in

astonishingly difficult circumstances sometimes, work well

together and have a united leadership on these issues. It was a

year after Stephen Carol's murder that Martin Corey was returned to

jail. One of the few known reasons for his arrest is he associated with

a Lurgan Republican, a man police believe was involved with Stephen

Carol's killer, but has not been brought before the courts. I have

been in to see Martin Corey, but I was not allowed to record the

conversation of ring in a pen and paper, but we did talk for over an

hour. I had my fingers scanned, I was given this little bit of paper

to produce to go in and visit Martin Corey. I found him a very entrenched

Republican, old school. He said he was a leader of the continuity who

was trying to buy weapons and trying to recruit members. One of the

surprising things he told me, he believes he is back in jail because

he refused to become an informant. He said he was approached approached

repeatedly by two plainclothes PSNI operators. He refused to give

information and they threatened him that his licence would be revoked.

He says it is because of this he is back in jail. The PSNI said they

don't comment on intelligence matters, but they use of agents is

governed by the matters, but they use of agents is

legislation. Martin Corey's situation has led some to invoke one

of the most divisive memories from Northern Ireland's troubled past. He

is being detained as a result of intelligence reports, intelligence

sightings, what ever you want to call it. But that is not evidence.

That is an important point to make, because this is effectively

internment without trial. To use the word interment, it is a big

accusation? I think I am using it accurately, not just as a politician

but is also as a lawyer. I don't believe there has been due process.

The fact remains, although evidence is secret, the process is legal.

Licences are not revoked in the court of public opinion. They

revoked by people who the law charges for taking those decisions.

It is ridiculous to suggest a man has been denied his Liberty based on

an arbitrary decision. The people taking this decision take it on the

evidence presented to them. Gerry Conlon of the Guildford four is

worried about justice not being seen to be done. I have been imprisoned

for 15 years for something I did not do. Totally innocent man. I watched

my father die in a British prison for something he did not do. He is

back in court these days as an observer, worried about the use of

shadowy intelligence in observer, worried about the use of

cases. British justice has always been based on that you know the

accusations you are facing and you face your accusers. Even though what

happened to others was wrong and the law was subverted in order to secure

conviction, British justice when it is applied in its proper context, is

probably the best judicial system in the world. How can you say it is the

best in the world? British justice, if it is run as it should be, and I

have no doubt in most cases it is, it is probably one of the best legal

systems in the world. But we live in a democracy and it is not good

enough to say we have had secret information we cannot share. This

enough to say we have had secret going down the Guantanamo Bay

route. A Sunday in north Belfast and Republicans gather for a ceremony to

remember Thomas Begley, the IRA bomber. Some of these people used to

trouble MI5, but now they are mainstream and they are dismissive

of the dissidents. They are not having any effect, not going

anywhere. The people who are involved in these other republican

groups are entirely wrong. A week later, and evidence that Sinn

Fein's critics are attempting to use allegations of interment as a

rallying cry. Supporters of Martin Corey have organised a picket along

the road. It was built on a world Corey have organised a picket along

record attempt, but the numbers are less than overwhelm and. It is about

getting people who have political dissent of the street. Putting them

in jail and scaring other people from joining in. The police say

there is no substance to that allegation and anyone jailed will

have gone through the proper judicial process. These people know

we are constantly working towards building a case against them. We

have charged 261 people since the 1st of April, 2010, of axe of

terrorism. That is a chunk of people who have been active in the

dissident groups. Although many have been charged, few have been

convicted and some claim that suits MI5.

In County Tyrone, I meet a man who was remanded in jail after the

police said his fingerprints were found on a plastic bag containing a

new type of bomb. A man who accepts the title of Dissident Republicans

publicly but denies any role in terrorism. The messages on the wall,

do you feel you have been at the sharp end?

The writing is not from a bygone area. But the someone who has spent

nine months on numerous charges, I have never seen any of the evidence

that was used against me. What is notable about this case is that

after spending months in jail on explosives and terrorist charges,

his case was dropped. We don't even know if the evidence exist. I don't

think there was ever enough to hold me. I think they knew that and they

used the remand period to inter me because of my political beliefs. Why

would you become a target? With these powers, it is a case of who is

giving us trouble in what areas and who isn't singing off him switch --

hymn sheet. I have seen absolutely no evidence of arrest to be used as

a technique of disruption. If I did, I would criticise it severely

and I do not believe ministers either locally, or UK ministers

would support it. This problem is, the criminal justice system is so

slow that it is possible these cases are just normal. I think you can

certainly said the slow system creates a temptation for the police

and intelligence agencies to kick people into the long paperwork, if

you like. You need to be an angel to resist that temptation, perhaps.

Whatever their tactics, the security services strategy seems to have

lowered the death toll inflicted by dissidents. I think police on both

sides of the border and security services in Northern Ireland are

fighting a different type of war against Dissident Republicans. I

think that the moment it is being successful. As long as the dissident

threat remains in Northern Ireland, so should MI5, say their supporters.

The security services are saving lives in Northern Ireland. Their

work is preventing many attacks by Dissident Republicans. No citizen in

Northern Ireland who operate within the law has nothing to be frightened

about with these operations. But MI5's presents a road 's efforts at

giving the police the confidence of their communities. What good are

they doing? In my opinion, non-. We need to worry about who is looking

at the bigger political picture. MI5 can be affect did in disrupting the

dissidents the years, but if they are using secret evidence, a

political issue builds up that needs to be addressed and we don't have

the mechanism to address that. Secrets and violence flourish in

darkness. The hope must be the war of the shadows gives way to the pale

dawn of peace. That no more lives are lost and that the battle for

hearts and minds is a victory for us all.

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