BRITISH INTELLIGENCE: BRIAN NELSON AND THE REARMING OF THE LOYALIST DEATH SQUADS ********** introduction: In my view, the Brian Nelson case is the tip of the iceberg of British covert operations in Ireland. The use of agents is a long established practice and the use of 'counter agents' is a long standing element in British counter-insurgency strategy. Through Nelson, British intelligence controlled and directed the UDA (Ulster Defense Association). There is nothing to suggest that they have ceased to do this. They obviously have other agents in the UDA and other loyalist paramilitary groups. At the time of writing these groups have threatened the entire nationalist community in the Six Counties as well as the Dublin government. Among the factors involved in the current resurgence of loyalist death squads are: 1) The founding of Ulster Resistance (still a legal organization) by Ian Paisley, Peter Robinson and others; 2) The use of British intelligence files, sometimes erroneous, by loyalist death squads to target some of their victims; 3) The arming of the loyalists with the full knowledge of British intelligence, by Nelson. There is an urgent need to have the entire Nelson case fully investigated. There are a number of key aspects about which some details have emerged through his trial and from other sources. These are now a matter of public record and include: * The cover-up of the Brian Nelson affair including the deal at his trial, * Nelson's role as a British intelligence agent; * British Intelligence involvement with loyalist paramilitaries and their activities. * The arming of loyalist death squads. This short pamphlet deals in detail only with the rearming of the loyalist death squads and the South African connection. Following the revelations contained in this pamphlet, the British government were vigorously denying involvement or that it knew in advance of the importation of arms from South Africa. However, as we go to press, the BBC's Security Correspondent Brian Rowan has revealed that he was formally briefed by British Army and Intelligence sources and that British intelligence were aware of the arms shipment, but that they "lost track of it".This startling admission of involvement raises even more questions: Who was responsible? To whom are they accountable? Have they been made accountable? The cover-up must be unravelled, all the sordid details revealed to the public, and the British government, the British Army, British Intelligence and their agents in loyalist death squads must be held accountable for the deaths and injuries of nationalists. Gerry Adams January, 1993 ********** FOREWORD On 3 February, 1992, a senior judge and former Attorney General for the unionist government at Stormont, Basil Kelly, handed down a minimum prison sentence to a British agent, Brian Nelson. Justice Kelly praised Nelson and described him as a man who had shown "the greatest of courage". The DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions) also received a letter sent on behalf of British cabinet minister Tom King, in support of Nelson and saying that he wa a valuable agent. The sentencing of Nelson to ten years imprisonment on a series of charges relating to killings in the Six Counties was the result of a deal struck between the office of then British Attorney General Patrick Mayhew, Nelson himself and the North's judiciary. The deal was to keep Nelson from disclosing embarrassing information about British Intelligence and its deep involvement with loyalist death squads. Fifteen of the 35 charges against Nelson, including two charges of murder, were dropped by the Crown Prosecution at an earlier court appearance in return for guilty pleas on 20 lesser charges, five of which related to conspiracy to murder. Brian Nelson has since been transferred to a prison in England and is expected to be released in three or four years time. ********** WHO IS BRIAN NELSON? Nelson is a 45 year-old native of Belfast, who once served with the notorious Black Watch Regiment of the British Army. He joined the UDA in the 1970's and was later recruited by British Military Intelligence. He worked undercover for British intelligence in Ireland from within the ranks of the UDA. In 1973, he and two UDA members kidnapped a half-blind Catholic man. The victim, Gerald Higgins, was abducted as he was walking along North Queen Street in the North Belfast area. Nelson and the other two electrocuted him and burned his hair off. The RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary) labelled Nelson a ringleader of the gang and in a subsequent court report the Belfast Newsletter said: "The abducted man was taken to a UDA club in Wilton Street off the Shankill Road, searched, punched, had a gun drawn across his head and had his hair set alight. "Mr. Higgins had his spectacles taken away from him, leaving him almost blind. The injured man had a heart condition and his assailants refused to let him take pills which gave him relief. The men wet his hands and then put two wires in his hands connected to a generator and sent an electric shock through his body. In a notebook belonging to Mr. Higgins were the words: "This is one, two to follow." Gerald Higgins died not long afterwards. His family blame his premature death on the effects on his torturous ordeal. Nelson and his two UDA accomplices were not even charged with attempted murder. They pleaded guilty to charges of false imprisonment of Gerald Higgins and possession of a revolver. Nelson was sentenced to only seven years in jail. On his release from prison, Nelson, still working for British intelligence, became active again in the UDA until the mid 1980's when he left Ireland to work in Germany. While in Germany Nelson maintained contact with the UDA and his British Army handlers. In early 1987, his former British Army 'handler' and a representative of MI5 met Nelson outside London and asked him to return to Belfast to resume his role as a British agent within the UDA. The UDA, at that time a legal organization, is the largest loyalist paramilitary force with responsibility for the killings of hundreds of nationalist/Catholic civilians. Nelson became Director of Intelligence for the UDA. He was directly in control of selecting targets for loyalist death squads. He was actively assisted in this by his British Intelligence 'handlers' who directed the reorganization and the rearming of the UDA. >From the time he returned to Ireland until his arrest: *Nelson was assisted by British Intelligence in compiling information on people who would be targeted for assassination; *The British Intelligence/Nelson combination was directly responsible for murder and attempted murders. *British Intelligence allowed Nelson to organize a hugh arms shipment from South Africa, to come into the Six Counties to be used against the nationalist population. *The Nelson/British Intelligence ring was responsible for the shooting dead of solicitor Patrick Finucane and for the targeting of fellow solicitor Paddy McCrory, the man who faced the SAS at the Gibraltar inquest. *A British Intelligence officer suggested that the UDA should bomb the hugh Whitegate Oil Refinery in Cork Harbour. Nelson was arrested in January 1990 as part of investigations into the widespread leakage of British Intelligence documents to loyalists. This investigation, headed by senior British police officer John Stevens, followed increasing public concern about collusion between British Crown Forces and Loyalist paramilitaries. It later emerged that Nelson's British Intelligence handlers impeded the Stevens Inquiry by delaying for months the handover of 1,000 Crown Forces photo montages which Nelson had in his possession as the UDA's Director of Intelligence. In mid-January 1993, British Secretary of State for the North, Patrick Mayhew, denied that weapons imported by Brian Nelson with the knowledge of British Intelligence are being used to kill Catholics. This is untrue. Mr. Mayhew's denial came in the midst of a sustained loyalist killing campaign. The modern weapons used in recent killings including the Milltown cemetery attack the Ormeau and Oldpark bookmakers' shop attacks, and individual killings, came from the consignment brought in by Nelson with the assistance of British Intelligence. British Intelligence and the British government were kept fully informed of all Nelson's activities including a weapons shipment which came in January 1988 and included 200 AK-47 rifles; 90 Browning pistols; around 500 fragmentation grenades; 30,000 rounds of ammunition and a dozen RPG7 rocket launchers. At Nelson's trial a 'character witness', a Military Intelligence Colonel referred to as 'J', stated that he was the commander of a Military Intelligence Unit in the North between 1986 and 1989 and had been responsible for Nelson. Colonel 'J' admitted that he gave monthly briefings to the British army GOC in the North and other senior officers. He said it "would be normal for Nelson's information to be referred to at these briefings. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland might also be interested in such information." Evidence given in court and uncovered by journalists since then has revealed the extent of the import of weapons and that Colonel 'J' knew of these events. Brian Nelson's case reveals the extent to which the British government is prepared to use covert operations and 'counter gangs' in order to advance its political objectives in Ireland. ********** SOUTH AFRICAN CONNECTIONS Informal contacts between loyalists and South Africa were first established in the mid 1970's when some former UDR men went there as mercenaries. (1) By 1989, however, the situation had changed considerably: "the Pretoria link with the Ulstermen has been developed over some considerable time and was {sic} a well established two-way traffic." (2) The starting point for this new relationship was the visit to Belfast in 1985 of a 48 year old ex-merchant seaman originally from Portadown, who had gone to live in South Africa. (3) Dick Wright's Ulster connections made him a useful intermediary--he was the uncle of Alan Wright, leader of the Ulster Clubs and co-founder of Ulster Resistance. He was also an agent for Armscor, the South African state-owned company which, in defiance of the 1977 United Nations arms embargo, set about making South Africa self-sufficient in military hardware. Within a decade it had made the country one of the world's top ten arms exporters. (4) It was particular;y anxious to acquire a missile system for use in Angola and Namibia. Israel (which had given South Africa its start in the arms business, supplying designs for ships, missiles and small arms) (5) was equally keen to get details of the most advanced missile available--the Starstreak being developed by Shorts, Ltd. in Belfast. Wright visited the home in East Belfast of a senior UDA leader and offered to supply guns; the order would have to be worth at least a quarter of a million pound, but missile parts or plans would be an acceptable alternative to cash. (6) The offer was taken seriously by the UDA. UDA chief John McMichael sent UDA intelligence officer Brian Nelson to South Africa to investigate the possibility of a deal. (7) The crowds travelling from Belfast to London over the weekend of the 7/8 June 1985 for the McGuigan/Pedroza boxing match provided cover for the first part of Nelson's journey. (8) During the two weeks in South Africa, Nelson was shown warehouses full of weapons by Dick Wright, the Armscor agent representing the South African state. The conditions of the deal offered by his host became decidedly more attractive: the loyalists were to supply South African agents with secrets or part--if possible a complete Shorts missile system--in return for a substantial shipment of arms and finance of up to 1 million pounds. (9) By 1985, Brian Nelson had been a British agent for at least 10 years (10) Official knowledge of the South African negotiations however may have gone far beyond the reports of Nelson on his return. "Private Eye" magazine claimed in February 1992 that Nelson's visit had been cleared not only by the Minister of Defence but by an unnamed government minister. (11) The DPP's deal with Nelson at his trial was intended to ensure that no mention would be made of either the visit or the minister. (In 1987 a U.S. State Department report named Britain as one of the countries which had violated the UN arms embargo.) (12) In June 1987 the robbing of the Northern Bank in Portadown provided the money for the deal to go ahead--150,000 pounds of the 300,000 taken in the raid was spent on South African arms (13). This bought more weaponry than the UDA could handle, so the UVF (Ulster Volunteer Force, another loyalist paramilitary group) and Ulster Resistance were made 'partners' in the enterprise. A top secret unit responsible for developing channels of communication on behalf of several loyalist paramilitary groups were set up. At the end of December 1987, Joseph Fawzi (16), a Lebanese intermediary employed by a U.S. arms dealer working for the South Africans, dispatched a hugh consignment of arms which landed without difficulty in January 1988 somewhere along the County Down coast. (17) Two hundred AK47 automatic rifles, 90 Browning pistols, around 500 fragmentation grenades, 30,000 rounds of ammunition and a dozen RPG7 rocket launchers disappeared without a trace, the haul having apparently been divided into three parts shortly after its arrival. (18) If discovered, the arms would not have revealed their true origin: many were Czech-made weapons initially used by the PLO in Lebanon where they had been captured by the Israelis and sold to Armscor. (19) The shipment had not been let in through negligence, mistake or oversight. The decision to allow it to go ahead had been taken (presumably at the highest level) months before. Nelson states in a prison journal: "In 1987 I was discussing with my handler Ronnie the South African operation when he told me that because of the deep suspicion the seizure would have aroused, to protect me it had been decided to let the first shipment into the country untouched." (20) Nelson's involvement in setting up the UDA's transport system meant he, and therefor British Intelligence, knew the location of the farmhouse where the weapons would be stored initially after landing. In January 1988 Davy Payne, an ex-British paratrooper and a UDA Brigadier who was involved in sectarian killings in he 1970's, was arrested outside Portadown as he transported 60 assault rifles, rockets and handguns--most of the UDA's portion of the shipment. At the time the arrest was attributed to good luck and keen observation. Payne's arrest to Ulster Resistance--a telephone number written on Payne's hands turned out to be that of Noel Lyttle, a civil servant, former member of the UDR and close associate of Ian Paisley and Peter Robinson. Lyttle had stood for the DUP (Democratic Ulster Party, a loyalist party founded by Paisley) as a candidate in local government elections. Lyttle was warned on two or three occasions that he was under surveillance by the crown forces. (21) Even his questioning and release without charge did not interrupt Ulster Resistance's attempts to renegotiate with the South Africans. The Starstreak, being developed under a 225 million pound Ministry of Defence contract at Shorts was what the South Africans wanted. A fully operational unit had been on display until a few hours before a raid in 1987 in which Ulster Resistance had stolen a Javelin aiming unit. The extraordinary coincidence did not raise any suspicions: Lyttle's questioning and the warnings were ignored and three Ulster Resistance members travelled to Paris to negotiate with the South Africans, who had already made a down payment of 50,000 pounds. They were offering not only the parts (which though not operational could be used for research purposes) but expertise in firing the weapons--one of the three, Samuel Quinn, was a senior NCO in the Ulster Air Defence Regiment of the Territorial Army. Quinn trained recruits in the use of the Blowpipe missile. One of the weapons offered to the South Africans was a dummy blowpipe, stolen from Newtownards, where Quinn served. In April 1989, the three-Noel Lyttle, Samuel Quinn and James King, were arrested in Paris along with arms dealer Douglass Bernhardt in Paris along with a South African diplomat Daniel Storm. Storm claimed diplomatic immunity and was expelled from France. A diplomatic row blew up--but there was more noise than genuine surprise on the part of British authorities, who were well aware of Bernhadt's activities. A naturalized American citizen born in South Africa married to and Englishwoman, he had operated a gun dealership Field Arms in Mayfair for three years--it had received assistance from the Department of Employment. (22) The security services knew of Bernhadt's loyalist connections; they knew he was the U.S. dealer involved in the January 1988 arms shipment. They would also have been aware that Armscor agent Dick Wright had been employed as a marketing executive by Field Arms. Noel Lyttle later admitted that he had known Dick Wright, for Dick Wright as Armscor agent represented the South African state "quite a few years." (23) No request for the extradition of the three was made. Although the Swiss authorities began an investigation of Bernhadt's Geneva-based container-leasing company Agencia Utica, the British made no request for an examination of Bernhardt of his company (24). The Ulster Resistance members were released on bail. Following the 'revelations' of contacts between the South African government and the Paris the British government expelled the three South African embassy personnel. They were Staff Sergeant Mark Brunwer, who did not appear on the diplomatic list, and was described in the press as a 'technical officer': the First Secretary at the embassy, Jan Castelyn, and Etienne Fourie. Although the Foreign Office emphasized that they had been chosen at random, it must have been just another coincidence that one of them, Fourie, was considered the 'eyes and ears' of the London embassy and had worked as a journalist in the North in the 70's. (25) Two thirds of the arms shipment landed, with the full knowledge of British Intelligence, on the County Down coast almost five years ago, remains unaccounted for. The other third was seized at a road checkpoint. The results of its arrival, however, are unmistakable. In 1985 the UDA and UVF between them killed only three people. Since January 1988 more than 160 people have been killed by loyalists. The AK47 assault rifles were used in the killing of five people at the Ormeau Road bookmaker's shop in February 1992; and the killings in Murray's bookies on Belfast's Oldpark Road in December 1992; loyalist Michael Stone attacked the mourners in Milltown Cemetary in March 1988 with Russian made RPG5 splinter grenades and a Browning pistol from the same arms consignment. (26) The weapons created a secure base for a renewed (and sustainable) campaign of sectarian violence by loyalist paramilitary groups. If his handler's explanation is to be believed, Brian Nelson must have been an extrodinarily valuable agent if his safety had to be paid for in hundreds of lives. How many more Brian Nelsons does British Intelligence have operating within the various loyalist paramilitary groups? The above chronicles one episode of loyalist/British Intelligence gun-running activity. How many other shipments have been secured since then? ********** sources 1. Irish News, April 26, 1989 2. Observer, April 30, 1989 3. Irish News, December 12, 1989 4. Sunday Times, April 30 1989 5. Sunday Times, April 30, 1989 6. Independent, October 22, 1991 7. Sunday Tribune, March 24, 1989 8. Sunday Tribune, January 22, 1989 9. Irish Times, July 17, 1992 10. Irish News, January 11, 1992 11. Irish News, February 10, 1992 12. Sunday Times, April 30, 1989 13. Sunday Tribube, January 12, 1989 14. Irish News, November 28, 1989 15. Panorama quoting Brian Nelson's journal. 16. Independent, October 29, 1991 17. Irish Times, March 18, 1988 19. Irish News, April 26, 1989 20. Panorama quoting Nelson's journal 21. Irish News, December 12, 1989 22. Sunday Times, April 30, 1989 23. Irish News, April 20, 1989 24. Sunday Times, April 30, 1989 25. Independent, May 6, 1989 26. Irish Times, July 17, 1992 ********* What you can do Any person concerned with civil liberties, freedom and truth will be shocked by this booklet. You can help discover the whole truth and bring to justice those who have conspired to arm loyalists and kill northern nationalists. Write expressing your concern to your local elected representitives, asking him/her to raise this issue with the relevant auhtority. Contact: Amnesty International 1 Easton Street London WC 1X 8DJ United Kingdom Helsinki Watch 1522 K Street, NW #910 Washington DC 200005 The Taoiseach Albert Reynolds, TD Leinster House Dublin Dick Spring, TD Department of Foreign Affairs Leinster House, Dublin Marie G. Quinn Department of Justice Leinster House Dublin The Rt. Hon. John Major, MP Prime Minister 10 Downing St London, SW1 2AA The Rt. Hon. Patrick Mayhew, MP Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Whitehall London SW1A 2A1 Mr. High Annesley Chief Constable RUC Headquarters Knock Road Belfast ********* In the USA, copies of this pamphlet are available for 3 dollars (two copies for five dollars) from: Irish Northern Aid Committee 363 Seventh Ave New York, NY 10001 tel: 1-212-736-1916 fax: 1-212-279-1916