Guns and Government Spotlight

Tonight, a Spotlight investigation from Florida on the man who armed

the IRA. I said, "if it's guns you are talking about I can get you

guns." Mike Logan started his gun running career the year after the

IRA cease-fire. I was told to just ignore any

headlines that I was reading about that and keep sending the guns.

This was the IRA boss who ordered the guns. Sean Murray is today at

the heart of the peace process. He's been in the Sinn Fein delegation at

the Haass talks, and in the thick of been in the Sinn Fein delegation at

parading disputes. But tonight we uncover the shocking truth about

Sean Murray's gun running years during the peace process.

Unless they were planning some Tet offensive type of coup, then they

really had no need of further arms. We see the human cost inflicted by

the weapons Logan says Murray imported.

And one time he circled a couple of them and he said that one there had

been used in an operation that had happened in Lurgan.

We ask why the American government gave a gun-runner immunity from

prosecution. I have no risk for any of the

activities that I did for the IRA. I can't be arrested. I have immunity.

And Spotlight examines to what extent a blind eye has been turned

to save the peace. We've come to Florida, one of the

world's most popular destinations for sun seekers. It's also been a

favourite destination for the IRA - a perfect marketplace for buying

guns. For the past three months we've been tracking a man who was

one of their key suppliers. He's finally agreed to meet us. Tonight,

after ten years of silence, he's telling his story for the first time

Mike Logan is third generation Irish and was brought up in Florida. His

interest in Northern Ireland was sparked watching news reports.

I was just completely compelled to the story of how people could starve

themselves to death for a political cause. His home state attracts

thousands of visitors with its year round sunshine, but he went in the

opposite direction, drawn towards Troubles tourism. He travelled to

Northern Ireland for the first time in the mid-'80s. It was a trip that

was to change his life. Everybody has always said that I had a little

bit of, you know, that streak for going to the edge. And so, you know,

I went to South Armagh, I went to parts of Tyrone that were very

dangerous. And I just became friends with people, you know. He soon got

more deeply involved. Around ten years after his first visit, a

contact in Noraid - the Irish American fund-raising body - gave

him a number for an IRA man in Belfast. We took a black taxi up the

Falls Road, we went through some a lot of cloak and dagger type

activity to arrive at the location on the Springfield Road. I had no

idea where we were going, who I was meeting, what I was doing. And I was

taken to meet a gentleman. Mike Logan was about to meet a very

senior IRA man. And he asked me how can you help us out and I really

didn't know what he was talking about. And he seemed a little upset

and frustrated. And I finally kind of got it, and I said "are you

talking about guns?", and he kind of gave me some body language to

indicate that that was in fact what he was talking about. And I said,

"if it's guns you are talking about, I can get you guns." And I said, "I

know a lot about guns, I can get you guns." And I said, "I

guns for myself already in Florida. Let me know what you want and I will

get them, it's pretty much that simple." I didn't know what the

gentleman's name was at that point. I later came to know that his name

was Sean Murray or Spike Murray. He said just get the guns and somebody

would contact me and would give me instructions on how and where to

send them. So you were in no doubt at that

stage what you were being asked to do by Sean Murray? No doubt. You had

no qualms about that. No. Sean 'Spike' Murray had strong Republican

credentials. He joined the IRA at the age of 16 and was interned

shortly after. In the early '80s, he was part of a bombing team and

served seven years' time in the Maze prison on explosives charges. He's

seen here carrying the coffin of his cousin Dan McCann, who was killed by

the SAS in Gibraltar in 1988. These days he's heavily involved in

the peace process. Last week we caught up with him in West Belfast

at a cross community talk on sectarianism. He sits on around

seven peace groups, dealing with issues from parading, to conflict

resolution. And recently was part of the Sinn Fein delegation at the

Haass talks. But in the summer of 1995 when he was ordering guns from

America, he represented the two faces of Republicanism - a military

hardliner and a political activist. In this demonstration, he's calling

for sinn Fein to get into talks. A year later, he was reported to be

the IRA's new chief of staff. He kept a low profile, but security

sources believed he was a powerful player on the Northern Command and

on the Army council. He's certainly on the northern

command staff and he may well be the commander of it, a number of

security sources would say that, he would be in

security sources would say that, he operations in Northern Ireland.

We've also been told one of his roles was to raise money for IRA

operations. At this stage, Mike Logan was enjoying the high life, he

was a wealthy man, working as stockbroker. What was the

relationship like between the two of you? It was, you know, it was, I

think, mutual respect. I liked him as a person. Did you socialise with

him, did you meet his family? Yeah, I mean, I had been to his house. I

met his wife and at one point he suggested that we meet someplace and

it turned out that it was his mother and father's house.

What's shocking about Mike Logan's gun running career, was that it

started in 1995. The year after the IRA announced its cease-fire, Spike

Murray was ordering his first batch of guns from Mike Logan. At the

time, the peace process was gathering momentum. Just one of the

many historic moments was the first visit of an American president to

Northern Ireland. Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall inherit

the earth. In this and God bless you all.

But behind the scenes, a very different cross-Atlantic

relationship was developing between Mike Logan and a highly

relationship was developing between Sean Murray. I would describe him as

ultra, ultra security conscious. The IRA believed that there was British

surveillance everywhere, that they could hear through the walls with

different devices and so forth. So he usually wrote stuff down, we

didn't talk. Mike Logan would visit Northern

Ireland around twice a year, usually in July and December and would meet

up with his IRA contact Spike Murray. And he would write a list of

guns that had been received and say, "is that what you sent?" And I would

look at it just by memory and say, "yep, those are those". And

look at it just by memory and say, when we were done he would burn it

and then scatter the ashes. So, there was no talking. The two men

operated with military precision. Logan always used fake addresses and

posted his parcels where there was no CCTV. The cash was either posted

directly to him or given to him on his trips to Northern Ireland. He

found it all very easy. At that point you were able to actually look

in the classified ads of local newspapers and they had a section in

there for either sporting goods or firearms. And somebody had a firearm

to sell, they put their phone number in there they described the weapon.

I would call them up, go see him pay him some cash and walk away with the

gun. It is called private sale. Totally legal and there was no

paperwork involved. He was inventive in his methods. I was told by the

IRA to find a toy that you had to unscrew. I was told the customs

officials would be too lazy to unscrew it themselves and check. He

hit on toy fire engines as the best way to conceal and post the guns I

was a regular customer here, sometimes I would buy four or five

at a time. I brought them home the kids would play with them and I'd

pack them up and ship them off. I could put two guns, typically two

pistols. And we also put some ammunition in there, maybe about 20

bullets or so. You couldn't tell much difference between the weight

of the vehicle empty and with the guns in it. So it was almost

perfect, it worked for a long time. He once used a toy washing machine.

It made it to the other side, but Spike told me he'd received it, but

he was rolling his eyes. He said, it was just too easy, you just open up

the top and they were there. It didn't always go according to plan -

one of the packages was returned when it was sent to an address that

didn't exist. Next time I got a chance to go to Ireland, you know, I

was furious and said, "your screw up almost got me arrested". And he,

Spike, told me, "we will change the methods". He would give me a sheet

of paper with about six different addresses on it, all in the Irish

Republic, usually in border counties. In total, Mike Logan

bought around 400 guns for the IRA in a five-year gun running career

lasting from 1995 to 1999. It was all types of pistols at

first. 357 magnums, 9mms, other different calibres. You know, there

was one specific time where Spike said, "man, if you could get a Glock

that would be phenomenal". At that point he told me the IRA did not

have any of those weapons. By the middle of 1997 the peace

process was floundering. The IRA had ended their cease-fire 18 months

earlier with a massive bomb at London's Docklands. That had put

Sinn Fein out of the talks. In May, Tony Blair was elected Prime

Minister and brought fresh energy to the process. Straightaway, he

appointed Mo Mowlam Secretary of State. They were desperate to get

the peace process back on track. A cease-fire is necessary and the ball

is in the IRA's court. Within a month the IRA sent a deadly message

to the new government using a gun which we have strong reason to

believe came from Mike Logan. We start tonight with two murders in

Lurgan. The officers were on foot patrol when they were shot at close

range. Constable John Graham and Reserve Constable David Johnston

were killed in June 1997. It was one of the warmest days of the year and

they were patrolling in short sleeves. They were shot five times,

just yards from the police station. It was a baptism of fire for a new

Security Minister. I was a raw minister. I was new in the

territory. We thought there was a peace process underway. The IRA

authorised the killing of two police officers, shooting them in the back

of the head, I remember it. And the people who did it dressed up as

women. Why did they do that, to say to us that they were still there?

The month after the murders, Mike Logan was back in Belfast and as he

always did, met his IRA contact, Sean Murray, who was as security

conscious as ever. He would write down instead of communicate

verbally, to tell me which weapons had been received. He would write

them down by brand and calibre and say, these were the ones that we

got, is that the ones you sent? He circled a couple of them

got, is that the ones you sent? He that one there had been used in an

operation that had happened in Lurgan about a month previous that I

was familiar with. This is the meeting where Mike Logan said he

heard about two guys who were, quote, "whacked" in Lurgan. Lurgan,

which is the town which I believe the officers were killed, and he

pointed. Murray pointed to one of the guns that Logan had sent. It was

kind of an unusual gun, it was a Colt 9mm with an internal hammer,

which is kind of rare, and he circled that and he wrote next to

it, "Two Lurgan RUC". And I knew exactly what that operation was and

it happened about a month before. And he said, he wrote next to it,

that gun did those. How do you feel about that? Not too good. I wasn't

living in a fantasy land, I knew I was sending guns and I knew that

people were likely to be killed with them, but to be confronted with the

specific, you know, example of a couple of people that had been

killed that had children and things like that.

John Graham had three daughters. David Johnston had two sons. The

children were all under the age of ten. The day his father was buried,

seven-year-old Louie Johnston wrote this message.

17 years on, he says the sentiment remains the same. He didn't

17 years on, he says the sentiment appear on camera, but he told us his

dad was a man of integrity who was devoted to his family. The Graham

family were also too upset to speak on camera, but they agreed to share

their personal pictures and memories of the two officers. They were both

lovely fathers and loved their children. They did everything for

their children. They weren't political in any way. They just

lived for their families. After her husband was killed, Rosemary Graham

was left to raise her children alone. It was very difficult. They

thought they saw faces at night, alone. It was very difficult. They

they thought they saw people with guns. We brought the dog in from the

pen after the funeral the first day and we all slept in the one room for

two years. There are people who would say, you

are no better than the people who pulled the trigger, because you sent

hundreds of weapons from America. I accept a huge responsibility for

what I did. We haven't been able to independently verify if one of the

guns which killed the two officers had been sent by Mike Logan. We've

spoken to the PSNI, had been sent by Mike Logan. We've

Enquiries team, the Department of Justice, the Forensic Science

Service and the Coroner's Office. None of them was prepared to verify

the exact gun, as the investigation is still active. We have been able

to confirm one of the guns was an unusual weapon that had not been

used previously and was a 9mm automatic. And that's consistent

with what Mike Logan has said. The charge against the republican

movement was that it was using violence to get back into talks.

Sinn Fein is not involved in any dual strategy, there isn't any twin

track process. Sinn Fein is a party in our own right, which is wedded

The Sinn Fein leadership was very absolutely to our peace

The Sinn Fein leadership was very sophisticated, very intelligent.

They were working many moves ahead. They may well still want to get the

same objective that we believe and the vast majority of people in

Northern Ireland wanted it, and that was an end to the process, end to

the violent process and into a peace process. They were not trying to

stop the peace process. They were trying to exact the high price. Twin

track strategy or not, within five weeks of the Lurgan killings, the

IRA were back on cease-fire and Sinn Fein were back in talks. Those led

to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement less than a year later.

What's shocking is that throughout this whole process that the IRA

continued to import guns from America. This is the agreement. Yes,

71.12%. I feel the hand of history on our shoulders.

Once the Good Friday Agreement was signed, it paved the way for

Once the Good Friday Agreement was Fein to get into government. From

now on the issue of decommissioning would dominate the news agenda.

Total disarmament. Decommissioning is a military process. Resolving the

Adams issue. But republicans didn't let discussions over decommissioning

their old weapons get in the way of buying new ones. When I first

started, I think the first cease-fire was going on. I was told

to ignore whatever, any talk about that. And then the second the peace

cease-fire came about, I was told to ignore that and then the

decommissioning process started on and I was told to just ignore any

headlines that I was reading about that and keep sending the guns.

For five years it had been just Sean Murray and Mike Logan running the

operation, then this man, Conor Claxton, got involved. Mike Logan

had first met him in a bar in Belfast. Late in 1998 Spike told me

that he wanted to increase the volume or quantity of the weapons

that were coming back. And he said that the young gentleman that you

met there, I would like him to come over and stay with you and for you

to teach him how you are doing the operation, so we can increase the

volume. I wasn't particularly thrilled with it. However, I went

along with it. Logan showed Conor Claxton how to hide guns in toy

trucks and advised him to post them where there was no CCTV. Claxton

recruited three other people to his operation.

But the Florida Four were careless in their methods. They bought guns

openly and were seen posting parcels which were later intercepted. An

early morning take-down in Weston, the FBI arresting two men and a

woman. Within six months, Conor Claxton and his recruits were

arrested. A call from Scotland Yard tipped the Feds. They X-rayed some

eight packages mailed to Ireland labelled toys and computers, but all

contained guns. labelled toys and computers, but all

admitted to FBI agents that he was working for the IRA. "You didn't get

all of us," he told them. The arrests were to spark an

international outcry. The IRA were meant to be on cease-fire and the

Florida operation looked like a blatant breach. The Secretary of

State, Mo Mowlam, was under immense pressure to decide if the IRA were

still on cease-fire. What would they need new guns for if they weren't

planning a return to violence? What I have to do is make a judgement on

the facts that I am given. I have looked very carefully at what I was

given by the Americans and by the Irish and there is no doubt that the

IRA are involved in a way that is counterproductive and unhelpful. It

is quite clear that the IRA is not keeping what we would recognise as a

cease-fire. And the danger here, the danger here, and I think we should

spell this out, is what the Secretary of State is doing is that

she appears to be accepting the IRA's definition of events. What

criteria did you apply whenever yourself and Mo Mowlam were deciding

is this a breach, what was the process that you went through?

Everything had to go through a filter of very sophisticated

reasoning. And there wasn't, there wasn't a rule book you got out that

said cease-fire in breach, end of process. There was a much more

subtle, much more complicated, much more difficult process than that.

The American Government simply dismissed the idea of a breach, in a

White House statement. There was never any proven link to the top

levels of the IRA. Despite the British and American governments

saying there was no breach, doubts persisted as to whether or not it

was an IRA-sanctioned operation. The top lawyer who prosecuted the

Florida Four case, Richard Scruggs, was adamant that based on

information he'd been given, the gun running was an IRA operation

sanctioned by the Army Council. Scruggs would later reveal that

senior White House officials put him under extreme pressure to withdraw

his remarks. Although Conor Claxton told police he was in the IRA when

he was arrested, by the time he got to court, he had adopted the party

line and denied that the gun running had been sanctioned. From the start,

the IRA insisted the cease-fire was still intact.

In August 1999 the IRA issued a statement in which they denied

authorising the Florida Gun Running Operation. That is very amusing.

What went through your head when you read that statement? Understandable.

You know, from the very moment that they sent Conor he was told that if

you get caught you have to deny it you know. And they weren't too happy

when he said... One of the first things he said was, "I am an IRA

volunteer." The Florida things he said was, "I am an IRA

says speaking out against the IRA damaged his career in the

intervening years he has refused to retract his assertions. Richard

Scruggs has now gone even further. We've been to see him in Florida and

have spoken to him on several occasions as part of our

investigation. He told us he was flown to the UK after the Florida

four arrests and was given a high level security briefing. He has

revealed the name of the man he says the British and American authorities

believed had ordered the Florida guns.

Richard Scruggs says that from first day he was assigned to this

case he was told that Sean Murray was the brains behind the IRA gun

running operation. He says Murray was named in FBI interviews but when

we tried to access those documents here in the courts in Florida we

discovered they're in sealed files. The Florida prosecutor told

Spotlight that authorities on both sides of the Atlantic moved to

distance the IRA - and Sean Murray in particular - from the Florida

four operation in order to preserve the peace process. If that was the

policy, it seems to have been known to only a small circle in the

British government, and may even have excluded the security minister

at the time. The man behind have excluded the security minister

operation was Sean Murray, he was ordering hundreds of guns from

America. As Security Minister at that stage how could you not have

known that that was happening? I am not saying I didn't know. What I am

saying is I have no immediate recollection that I was aware of it.

I wouldn't know if there was something I wasn't being told for

obvious reasons. And it would not have fazed me if there was something

of a high level of intelligence that was being kept tight within a

network. I would not have felt somehow I was out of the loop

because I would have understood the importance of direct reporting to a

prime minister's office. While Conor Claxton tried to

distance himself from the IRA, we have discovered a clear link between

him and Sean Murray, his former IRA boss. We've seen documents in the

land registry, showing that Murray bought a house from Claxton, in West

Belfast in the months after his arrest. The Florida four made the

headlines in July 1999. But Mike Logan, who had shown them how to

export guns, wasn't arrested, despite being visited by the FBI who

knew he was a friend of Claxtons. We had at least five different Federal

Agencies - the ATF, Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, Secret Service,

Customs, FBI, and about thirty of our local police officers here, all

came to my house. Luckily for Logan, the police hadn't

come with a warrant to search his house. Since I was a stockbroker at

that point I was in a million dollar house, they did not think that I had

anything to do with the actual buying and shipping of the weapons.

That I had something to do with some type of money laundering or funding

of the operation. And I didn't. It was a lucky escape. He'd stopped gun

running but he still had a pressing problem - 100 guns at his home. I

pretty much thought I was going to jail. I had a gun safe in my garage

that was full of guns. He headed to the Everglades, the

swampy wastelands of Florida, to get rid of them. In the back seat it was

filled to the roof, the trunk was completely filled. I covered it with

blankets and I'm driving down the street with a car load of guns. I

didn't know what to do with them, so I literally started just throwing

them out the window as I was driving along. I was so terrified I was

going to be arrested I just had to get rid of them. I did it at

intervals along this whole long canal. This wasn't the only place

but it was probably where the majority of the guns were dumped.

This was used as a dumping ground for stolen cars, dead bodies, murder

victims and things like that. It's about as rural as you can get in

this area. How much money's worth went down into the canals? It's hard

to put a number on it, maybe around $20,000, $25,000 or something like

that. But the guns in the garage were just

part of the problem. There were even more guns - another hundred - bigger

and more sophisticated weapons. Too big to post to Ireland in toy

trucks, Logan and Claxton had stockpiled them

trucks, Logan and Claxton had unit. We had previously shipped out

all of the larger weapons, assault rifles and sniper rifles that we had

into a storage facility in Deerfield Beach. Mike Logan says the IRA paid

the monthly storage costs on the unit for several years but then in

2001 they suddenly stopped. And so one month I called up after years of

the payments being made and they say it wasn't made. And I called the

next month and it wasn't made. So I started freaking out. Logan was

afraid it would just be a matter of time until the unit was opened up -

and his fingerprints found on the secret stash of IRA weapons.

Here I am, Mr successful stockbroker, living in a million

dollar house and I got this albatross around my neck you know

waiting to take me down. Mike Logan was worried about the FBI

but it was the police in Ireland who first discovered one of his guns. It

was in the hands of an IRA punishment squad arrested on their

way to a shooting in Cork. These are the three automatic pistols which

were seized by Gardai after they stopped a stolen car at a checkpoint

at Mitchelstown in North cork last night.

After another visit from the FBI, Logan took matters into his own

hands. I tried to figure out how I was going to get out of the

situation. And what I came up with was I called some attorneys. The

attoney he called was Joe Di Genova, a prominent Washington DC lawyer

with a track record at the highest levels in Government. This of course

is a very dear friend of ours and a client, my friend Joe Pesci.

Joe Di Genova lists famous actors among his clients, but Logan was

coming to him with real life drama. Even though, the serial numbers had

been removed from the guns, they were able to trace the weapon and

eventually discover that mike had been the purchaser of the weapon at

a gun show in Florida and the gun seller, the owner of the weapons had

identified mike as the person who bought the weapon and that's when he

called us. At this point the FBI only knew about one gun, they were

called us. At this point the FBI about to hear about a whole lot

more. Here are some of the things that were stored in that facility.

Sniper rifles, 50 calibre guns, armour piercing bullets; these were

not self-defence weapons, they were mortars, military weapons, just huge

in number and capability. If the secret stash of guns was

uncovered, Logan was facing a long stretch in prison - yet the same

guns offered him a stay out of jail card, a bargaining chip with the

authorities. First of all I hired attorneys in Washington DC so that I

could remain anonymous. If I hired an attorney in Florida and they

called up and said yeah we got a guy that knows where these weapons are

they could have figured out it was me.

That was the start of the process to get immunity from prosecution. To

keep him anonymous, he was given the pseudonym Mr Green. I kept telling

my attorneys to keep pressing home the fact that they are responsible

if these weapons fall into the wrong hands, or even into the hands of the

people that paid me to get them. That they would have a

responsibility for that. In exchange he had to tell them

everything he knew. Mike had given us a bunch of information and in

order to us a bunch of information and in

agreement, we had to tell them things that mike might be able to

tell them and in that list of things was all these things about the

dealings with the people in Northern Ireland. The trips there, the money.

After three months of negotiations, the American government gave Mike

Logan immunity from prosecution for the five years he'd spent sending

guns to the IRA. I never ratted on anybody. I never said anything that

got anybody in trouble. Nobody has ever been arrested because of me. I

was just trying to get myself out of a jam and the IRA put me in that jam

because they did not continue to pay for the storage facility. What was

their reaction to what you told them? I think they were pretty

shocked that my level of involvement that I basically was doing it for

years, and that I was the primary gun runner for the period of time

that I was involved in it. I would say shock was probably even an

under-statement. This is the kind of stuff that the US government rarely

gets and so this was a unique opportunity for them and the

agreement was the only way they were going to get the information. So it

was a no brainer. The government had to do this eventually, even though

they may not have liked it or the US attorney in Florida might not have

liked it. Coming just two years after September 11th, at a time of

zero tolerance, securing such an agreement shows just how seriously

the Americans took Mike Logan's testimony. In return, he agreed to

be 'truthful, accurate and complete' at all times in his information or

the agreement would be 'null and void'. The Justice Department said

they would 'advocate he not be extradited' for his involvement with

the IRA should the issue arise. I am sitting here talking to you now. I

have no risk for any of the activities that I did for the IRA

for sending, buying, sending any weapons. I can't be arrested. I have

immunity. What is your view of that immunity agreement? Well, I mean I

haven't read it in detail. I wasn't there at the time. I wouldn't

necessarily have knowledge of it. Nothing in my recollection tells me

I was made aware of this. And so clearly what the United States, who

obviously were working with clearly what the United States, who

individual getting him to divulge the information they make a

judgement, well, you have given us information, you have helped

immeasurably in that process and we are now giving you... To use the

term immunity in that. Does that exonerate him for all the bad things

he has done in the past? Probably not. Mystery remains over what

happened to the information Mike Logan passed on. The American

Justice department believed his story was so significant they agreed

to give him immunity from prosecution. But the big question is

- what happened with that information once they had it? His

attorney believes it must have been passed on to senior figures on both

sides of the Atlantic. This is passed on to senior figures on both

powerful stuff, this gets shared and the reason it gets shared, is so

people who are big shots don't get embarrassed. So there is no way this

information doesn't get shared and if it doesn't people will pay a very

high price if it ever comes out and something happens. To your

knowledge, how many people knew about that immunity agreement? I

know that the US Government knew about it at the very highest levels.

And I know that the Government in the UK Government in Northern

Ireland Office knew about it, everybody knew about it on both

sides. What we do know is that in Dec 2002 Mike Logan's lawyers met

two senior officials from the US justice department including the

head of the counter terrorism section. We know the lawyers told

the meeting, not just about gun running but that Sean Murray had

claimed one of Logan's guns had been used to kill two police officers in

Lurgan. Did you tell them about Sean Murray's involvement? Yeah, I mean,

they already knew. They knew from the very beginning. You know, I

didn't rat anybody up. I never mentioned any name to them that they

didn't know already. I didn't talk to them till 2003. They knew in 1999

that the operation was run by Sean Murray and had been sanctioned at

the highest levels of the IRA. All I did was confirm it for them. Did the

name Sean 'Spike' Murray ever come up? Yes, yes, it did. During all of

the discussions and the proffering of the information to the United

States Government, that name was given to the FBI and the Justice

Department. In 2003, when his name was passed on to the American

authorities in connection with Florida gun running, Sean Murray,

the hardliner of the mid '90s, was well established as a community

activist. He was Chairman of the Clonard Residents Association, and

had established a power base in this building on the Springfield Road in

West Belfast. Before Sean Murray became Chairman, the Government had

invested in Clonard Residents Association ?287,000 over three

years. The funding was channelled through

the Belfast Regeneration Office, a body set up by the Department of

Social Development to direct money into republican and loyalist areas.

What happened to the Florida guns has never been fully explained. When

decommissioning finally happened, the questions were still being

asked. General, did you see any weaponry manufactured since '94?

Erm...please. Yes, there were some very modern

weapons. So, the material bought by the IRA post the '94 cease-fire? I

can't say that, but, you know, they were very modern, so from the '90s.

Doesn't that then mean that you didn't see weapons that were proven

in court to be smuggled into Northern Ireland in 1999? That is,

the weapons in Florida. I wouldn't? You can't actually say what the date

of manufacture was. For example, a modern 40 calibre pistol, you can

see it's mint condition, very good, perhaps never used before, but, you

know, what's the date when it has arrived, you don't know.

The question remains, why did Sean Murray want to keep guns coming in

during the peace process? At the time, I believed, and still believe,

that they had a very considerable arsenal of weapons, assault rifles,

AK-47s and the like in Belfast. And unless they were planning some Tet

offensive type of coup, then they really had no need of further arms.

Senior security and government sources from the time have told us

that they believed the IRA wanted to "police the peace process", in other

words, deal with dissent in their own community. They wanted so-called

'clean' guns so there would be no forensic history that could be

traced back to them. This meant they could deny responsibility for

murders and continue to argue that the cease-fire was intact. The NIO

called this 'internal housekeeping'. We believe we've found a victim of

that policy of 'internal housekeeping'. A man has

that policy of 'internal dead in republican West Belfast as

he was sitting in a car. Joe O'Connor, a father of three, was in

the Real IRA. He was shot ten times at close range by two gunmen. The

IRA denied they did it, but his family said at the time they were

convinced they were responsible. There are strong indications that

clean guns from America were used to kill Joe O'Connor. At his inquest, a

police officer said the weapons used were a 0.38 revolver and a Glock 9mm

pistol. Both were 'clean' guns. The officer said they had "no known or

subsequent history of use" and said "there was a possibility" they'd

come from Florida. That's backed by "there was a possibility" they'd

Mike Logan. He's told "there was a possibility" they'd

responsible for any Glocks sent here after the cease-fire. There were

several situations that came up after 1999 where Glocks were found.

One of them was the killing of Joe O'Connor. A Glock was, you know,

supposed to be one of the guns that were used against him. The odds are

pretty high that that weapon... One of the weapons were used to kill Joe

O'Connor came from here. Joe O'Connor's family believe the police

inquiry into his murder was thwarted by political considerations related

to the peace process. In the past few weeks, the police ombudsman

agreed to investigate their few weeks, the police ombudsman

complaint. We have been told that the IRA need clean guns with no

forensic history which would not be traced back to them, in order to

police the peace. To deal with dissidents, drug dealers, feuds, did

that ever come up in any of your discussions? Look, we were aware

there was self-regulation going on within the IRA. And people were

being given punishment beatings and sometimes killed. That was not being

tolerated by us. We weren't saying, away you go, use that clean gun so

there is no forensics. That isn't just. There is no... I don't know

who would have made that judgement. Some people would say that at that

stage, the Government was determined to keep the peace process on the

road, and if that meant that there was collateral damage, people got

injured, people got killed, that was a price worth paying. I think in

retrospect, that point of view is probably correct. There was an

absolute determination to keep the peace process alive. It was in the

intensive care unit, cardiac massage was being effectively applied to it.

It was as if it was essential not to allow the whole 1998 agreement to

disintegrate and to blow up. Can you understand why people would say,

well, clean guns, they were very convenient because they couldn't be

traced back to the IRA and therefore there was never any chance of the

cease-fire being breached? Can I say, this was not a normal society.

This was a society where people were prepared to do terrible things in

the so-called just cause. And our role was to try and stop that

happening. And there was two strands in that. One was a justice process,

bringing the perpetrator of wrongdoing to justice, and the other

was to get the peace process underway, sufficient that you put an

end to all of that. And I will tell you, there was many victims'

families who voted for the Good Friday Agreement. They took the pain

for the greater good. Life has changed dramatically for

Mike Logan in the 15 years since he stopped posting guns to the IRA. His

secret life as a gun runner has taken its toll. He's had problems

with alcohol and drugs. He's no longer working and has lost his

house. Last year he spent three months in prison, he's still on

probation. You have remained silent for 15

years, why are you speaking out now? I think it is time for the story to

come out. I couldn't talk about it when I was a stockbroker because I

had everything in the world to lose, right now I don't have anything to

lose. There are people who will dismiss

Mike Logan as an addict, a fantasist, a man who has

exaggerated, do you believe him? Absolutely, absolutely, everything

that he said has been confirmed by written records, by bank records, by

other witnesses, by the seizure of objects and materials and by the

United States Government itself, which intercepted stuff and knew

what was going on. So I don't think there is any doubt that Mike is

telling the truth. Since he had an immunity agreement, he could speak

truthfully and freely and candidly. In the intervening years, Sean

Murray has become increasingly immersed in the peace process. He

declined to be interviewed by Spotlight but said our accusations

were "without foundation". He went on to say he had never been

"arrested, detained or interviewed" about any of the allegations. He

said similar claims had been made over a decade ago and if there had

been any evidence, "the PSNI would have acted". He told us his focus

was and remains on helping, in whatever way possible, to

consolidate the peace and political processes. But for those outside

political circles, a high personal cost is still being paid.

Personally, it is very important for me that people are held accountable

for their actions. The morally pure position might have ended us, with

the IRA campaign just going on and on for the last ten or 15 years. The

families of some of those killed at that time would say they have paid a

very, very high price for peace. Every victim did. Every victim did.

It was very difficult to deal with all of that. So everyone who lost

someone paid that price. And that is what we tried to stop. And by and

large, that is what we hopefully succeeded in doing. I would say the

price is too high for us. If terrorists could achieve peace on

down the line and sit around a table, why could they not have done

that earlier, and why did all these people have to die?