The Army intelligence officer at the centre of the 1970 arms crisis, Capt James Kelly, has called on the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, to publish "the totality of documentation" on the affair.
Capt Kelly, who was acquitted of conspiracy to import arms illegally, was responding to an Irish Times report that changes in a key witness statement before the trial were made by the prosecution legal team and not by the then minister for justice, Mr Desmond O'Malley.
The witness was the head of Army intelligence, the late Col Michael Hefferon, and the changes in his statement were attributed to the late Mr Declan Quigley of the Attorney General's office. Claims that the then minister for defence, Mr James Gibbons, had prior knowledge of the plan to import arms for Northern nationalists were excised from the statement, although it was not clear who took the decision to have these changes made.
The edited statement was discovered by staff at the AG's office as they were preparing documents for release under the 30-year rule. The document had apparently been misfiled.
Capt Kelly said the release of the document was a step in the right direction: "Unfortunately, Mr Quigley is now dead and we cannot ascertain at first hand on what authority he was acting, although Mr McDowell has gone to great lengths to exonerate Mr O'Malley from any responsibility.
"It is now about time that Mr McDowell removed his back-to-front cap of equivocality and concerned himself with the totality of documentation available to him and which was not presented to the court in breach of the cardinal principle of law that the prosecution is duty bound to disclose fully all relevant information."
He said the Minister was "fully aware" of several Army documents which were "vitally relevant" but were not made available to the court. Capt Kelly said these documents showed that his actions at the time were authorised.
A spokesman for the Minister declined to comment.