A detective who helped catch the killer of Pat Finucane today feared he could be targeted in a revenge attack.
Former detective sergeant Mr Johnston Brown said Ken Barrett, jailed for 22 years for murdering the Belfast solicitor, had threatened to kill him and police colleague Mr Trevor McIlwrath.
Mr Brown, who was in Belfast Crown Court to see Barrett sentenced, said: "I have got a life sentence because this man told me and Trevor McIlwrath that if this ever went wrong for him, that if he ever ended up in jail, that he would come after us and put two in our face."
"When you look at what happened to Pat Finucane, that's what he done to him, put bullets in his face. So I will be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life," he said.
Barrett (41) had confessed to Mr Brown, his police handler in October 1991 in the back of a car after falling out with the UDA.
Barrett was caught after the officers secretly recorded him making a confession. He declared: "I whacked a few people. . . . People say, 'How do you sleep, Ken?' I say, 'I sleep fine'."
But he was not charged after becoming an informer for the intelligence services.
The covert recording of the conversation disappeared, but Mr Brown made a statement saying that Barrett told him: "I killed Mr Finucane so quickly that he still had a fork in his hand as he was lying on the floor."
Speaking outside Belfast Crown Court, Mr Brown said the conviction was a good day for the people of Northern Ireland but condemned the provision of the Good Friday Agreement that allowed for the early release of paramilitary prisoners.
Barrett himself is expected to be on the streets again within months.
The former detective said: "We shouldn't take Ken Barrett's case in isolation. There are a lot of Ken Barretts out there, a lot of criminals, murderers, who are allowed to walk free who should never have been allowed to walk free."
Describing Barrett as a "cold fish", Mr Brown said he was satisfied he had pulled the trigger to kill Mr Finucane, who was gunned down in front of his wife and three children at Sunday lunch in February 1989.
Mr McIlwrath, who was also in court to see the conviction, said: "When he described those events that night in the back of the car he was reliving the events of killing Pat Finucane."
Mr Brown said: "That's why the tape isn't there. That's why it`s away. Any one member of the public listening to his account of the crime would have been satisfied."
He was not surprised that Barrett had expressed no remorse for killing Mr Finucane. He said: "You're looking at a Freddy Kruger here. This guy is never going to lie down."
PA