BY LAURA FRIEL

Evidence suggesting that the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) was involved in a burglary to gather information against a former member of the shadowy Force Research Unit (FRU), one of the most secret and controversial units within the British Army, is to be scrutinised by the United Nations. The details are included in a report currently being compiled by Jane Winters of human rights group British Irish Rights Watch.

The burglary was carried out in February of this year at a house where a former member of British Military Intelligence stays when he is outside Britain. A laptop computer, CDs, videos, two Swatch phones, a box of old cheque books and bank statements and an early draft of a memoir by the former soldier were amongst items taken.

The incident is believed to be linked to British attempts to identify and silence an FRU whistle blower, whose revelations appeared in the Sunday Times. The London newspaper was subjected to a gagging order shortly after a number of articles exposing Britain's ``dirty war'' in Ireland appeared last autumn.

The source, who adopted the pseudonym Martin Ingram, claims to be a former FRU member. British authorities are currently engaged in a massive search operation to locate and identify the former FRU soldier.

The FRU, which ran agents within loyalist paramilitary groups, was officially disbanded after the trial of a British agent infiltrated into the UDA by the FRU, Brian Nelson. Nelson exposed the role of British Military Intelligence in supplying information and selecting targets for loyalist death squads. The FRU is believed to have been reinstated under a different name.

Late last year, a former British soldier was arrested in Wales and taken to London where he was questioned by the Metropolitan Special Branch for two days. The former FRU member was accused of being Martin Ingram and was questioned in relation to the Official Secrets Act.

Papers allegedly stolen in February from an address used by a former member of the FRU were in MoD hands less than two weeks after the burglary. The MoD used the documents to confront an ex soldier they suspected of being Ingram. The MoD told the soldier's lawyers that the papers had been delivered to them anonymously.

Among Ingram's most controversial revelations was the claim that a British Army unit specialising in covert entry techniques attempted to sabotage the Stevens Inquiry into crown force collusion with loyalist death squads. The unit broke into the Stevens team's headquarters and set fire to investigation files. The office was gutted but the unit failed to totally thwart the investigation because Stevens had kept back-up files at another location.

Commenting, Jane Winters of BIRW said if it is true that the British security services burgled a house in order to obtain evidence against Martin Ingram which they were not able to obtain legally, then this is a serious criminal offence.

Fresh revelations from Shayler

MI5's Garda spies and bogus holiday firms

BY LAURA FRIEL & MARTIN SPAIN

Former MI5 operative David Shayler has claimed that at least one member of the Gardaí was on MI5's payroll and he has also confirmed a 1983 MI5 attempt to recruit Irish informers by means of a bogus holiday competition through a front travel firm.

In an interview with the Sunday Tribune, Shayler, on the run in France after breaking the imposed silence of the British Official Secrets Act to make explosive revelations about his time as an agent, claimed there were three channels of communication between the Gardaí and MI5: An official channel through an MI5 officer whose specific role was to liaise with the Gardaí. A more casual channel, where meetings took place between a number of MI5 agents and gardaí, most often in pubs and hotels. A third channel through Gardaí recruited and paid by the British to pass on information about possible IRA suspects.

Shayler said he saw files on IRA suspects in MI5 headquarters with a recurring code number attached. He was told the information came from a Garda source. He points out that this might have referred to one Garda source or may have been coded as a reference to all Garda sources.

In the interview, Shayler also refers to an elaborate MI5 plot to recruit a man they suspected of being in the IRA. ``They set up this entire company to do a holiday competition which only one person was ever going to win, because he was the IRA man they wanted to get to Spain on a two-week holiday so they could pitch him,'' said Shayler.

The activities of MI5 travel agents Casuro were revealed in this newspaper in our issue of 13 October 1983. Following previous dramatic revelations by married couple Tony and Margaret Hayde of an attempt to bribe them with £10,000 to supply information about INLA/IRSP activities after they `won' a free holiday, another couple, also lured to Spain by British Intelligence, told their story to An Phoblacht.

Henry and Bridget Logue of Sillogue Road, Ballymun, Dublin, were unaware of the sinister nature of their `prize' until they read of the Hayde's Casuro trip in daily newspapers.

They were not approached directly on their complimentary two-week Casuro Costa del Sol holiday, but suspected that this was because the British had assumed that Henry would share the holiday not with his wife but with a republican who was at the time of the offer staying with the Logues.

The couple were photographed on the front of An Phoblacht holding two of the six bottles of sparkling wine which were part of their `prize', along with £150 spending money, compliments of one `Frank Moate' of Casuro in London.