Anti-collusion picketers target police conference

Councillor Michael Ferguson and Michael Power, whose son was gunned down by the UDA, are confronted by a PSNI member at the Ramada Hotel in Belfast

Members of An Fhírinne, took their campaign to expose the British Government's role in assisting unionist death squads to assassinate Irish nationalists and republicans to the Ramada Hotel on the outskirts of South Belfast on Monday 19 April.

A policing conference involving hundreds of senior police officers from around the world was taking place in the Ramada and had been addressed by PSNI boss Hugh Orde.

Among those attending An Fhírinne's picket was Brendan Curran, whose partner, Sinn Féin activist Sheena Campbell, was shot dead by loyalists in 1992.

Michael Power, whose son, also called Michael, was shot dead by the UDA in 1987, was accompanied by Sinn Féin's Michael Ferguson as he handed in a letter for Hugh Orde to a PSNI inspector.

The letter called on Orde to address the links between the RUC Special Branch and unionist killer gangs.