A major High Court trial begins on Monday into claims that security forces allowed loyalist paramilitary killers to smuggle a shipments of weapons into Northern Ireland.
The action against the PSNI chief constable, secretary of state and the Ministry of Defence has been brought on behalf of relatives of murder victims Brian Frizzell and Alan Lundy.
Mr Frizzell was shot dead by the UVF along with two teenage girls at a mobile shop in Craigavon, Co Armagh, in March 1991, while Mr Lundy was killed by the UDA in May 1993 at the west Belfast home of Sinn Féin representative Alex Maskey.
According to lawyers acting on behalf of Mr Frizzell’s brother Pat and Mr Lundy’s wife Margaret, it is alleged that “the state assisted and facilitated loyalist terrorists in procuring and importing this shipment into the jurisdiction”.
There are dozens of other cases relating to the cache of imported weapons, including the 1994 Loughinisland massacre, the UDA’s 1991 murder of Donegal Sinn Féin councillor Eddie Fullerton, and the killings of James Cameron and Mark Rodgers, who were shot dead at their Kennedy Way work depot in October 1993.
KRW Law says a 9mm Browning pistol used to murder Mr Frizzell and a VZ58 rifle used to murder Mr Lundy came from the same arms shipments brought into the north from South Africa and Lebanon by loyalists in late 1987 or early 1988.
The purpose of the trial, according to the lawyers, is to determine state liability for any deaths or injuries caused by weapons that emanated from the shipments.
The trial is to run for at least five days, with the first day conducted in open court with the remainder of the proceedings closed.
Speaking in advance of the hearing. KRW Law partner Setanta Marley said: “The court has been grappling with the issue of this weapons importation for years, initially through the McNally case regarding the Ormeau Road bookmaker’s murders in 1992 and now through Mr Frizzell and Mrs Lundy’s cases – it has been a long process, and we welcome this matter finally coming to a head.”
This weapons importation has previously been the subject matter of various reviews and investigations, the most comprehensive of which was the Police Ombudsman’s investigation into the murders at the Heights Bar, Loughinisland. However, the issue of state liability has never been determined by a court.
