A Northern Ireland Assembly member today repeated his refusal to identify a source with information on the prison murder of a top loyalist, despite the prospect of facing court within weeks.
Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) politician Ian Paisley Jnr risks possible imprisonment because he is refusing to hand over details about the shooting of Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) leader Billy Wright in December 1997.
The notorious LVF figure was shot dead by members of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) in the top security Maze prison and a public inquiry is investigating allegations of state collusion.
Mr Paisley has claimed an unnamed prison officer told him official files were destroyed in the wake of the murder — but the DUP representative has insisted he will protect his source's anonymity.
Today Belfast High Court judge Mr Justice Gillen told lawyers representing Mr Paisley, who did not attend today's proceedings, that the case must be heard within weeks.
Mr Paisley later repeated his insistence that he will not agree to court demands that he identify his source.
"I said that very clearly from the start," he said. "There I stand. I can do no other."
The DUP representative faces a possible fine or jail term if he rejects the court request for him to disclose his source.
Mr Paisley wrote to Wright's father David with information that the Northern Ireland Prison Service employed people to destroy about 5,600 files shortly after his son was shot at the Maze.
Mr Paisley said he was told of an alleged policy within the Prison Service to destroy a large number of files as an emergency due to data protection legislation.
The Billy Wright Inquiry launched a court action demanding that Mr Paisley reveal his source.
But when the DUP representative was handed a summons to appear at court over the case yesterday, he said: "I can't give the name of my sources, it would not be the credible thing to do, it would not be the honest thing to do, it would not be the just thing to do."
Wright was shot in a prison van as he went to meet a visitor at the Maze high-security jail near Belfast.
Three inmates from republican splinter group the INLA were found to be responsible.
The Wright Inquiry, led by Lord MacLean, was announced in November 2004 following claims of security force collusion in the murder plot.
It is investigating how the killers were able to target their victim, including smuggling in arms, while also looking into security arrangements in the jail.
Wright (37) founded the LVF in 1996. He was accused of involvement in a series of murders of Catholics in the Portadown and Lurgan area of Co Armagh between the mid-1980s and his death in December 1997.
PA