The IRA killers of two RUC officers cheered as they fled the murder scene, a witness has claimed today at the Smithwick Tribunal in Dublin.
Chief Supt Harry Breen and Supt Bob Buchanan were ambushed and murdered in Co Armagh in March 1989 as they returned by car from a meeting over the Border in the Republic.
In the second day of witness testimony at the tribunal, two witnesses said the killers ambushed the men in a van. Finbarr King, who worked as a scrap yard worker at the time, said the gunmen opened fire on the officers’ car. “They all got into the van, as they were exiting the area they let out a big roar, like hurrah,” he said.
Chief Supt Breen and Supt Buchanan were two of the highest-ranking RUC officers killed in the Troubles.
They had travelled to Dundalk Garda Station in Co Louth to discuss a possible joint RUC/Garda police operation against smuggling and were returning to Northern Ireland when they were ambushed just north of the Border on the Edenappa Road.
The tribunal, established in 2005, is investigating allegations that Garda officers or a civilian working in the force colluded with the IRA in the murders.
Another witness, teacher Maurita Halpin, said Chief Supt Breen tried to surrender after their car was trapped but was shot anyway.
"They must have realised they wouldn’t make it, and the passenger got out and came round in front of the car and put his hands up and they shot him. He fell on to the road."
She added: "They shot him. And then the other man, I think the driver, not sure whether he opened the door, or whether they [the killers] went down and opened the door, but they shot him behind the wheel.”
Mr King told the tribunal he was travelling with a colleague on the Edenappa Road when they were stopped by a man wearing combat gear. They were ordered out of their van and told to lie face down on the ground. He said two other cars were also stopped.
Mr King described how the car carrying Chief Supt Breen and Supt Buchanan was overtaken by a van which cut the vehicle off. Up to six people got out of the vehicle and “the whole lot of them opened fire on them”, he said.
The scrapyard worker said one of the RUC officers was left lying out of the car.
Ms Halpin, who was in one of the other vehicles stopped in the IRA roadblock prior to the killing, said recounting what she witnessed to Garda Special Branch was “the worst part”.
She said she feared being questioned by the “British establishment” as she worked in the south Armagh area and some of the children she taught were from Republican families.
Earlier, a former RUC assistant chief constable, who served as the supervising officer to the head of Special Branch, said he was not aware of any intelligence of an IRA/Garda mole in Dundalk.
David Cushley also rejected claims from another ex-RUC assistant chief constable, who gave evidence yesterday from behind a blue screen, that Supt Buchanan and Chief Supt Breen disobeyed an order by crossing the Border.
PA