The RUC is to seek a court order to force a press agency in Belfast to hand over the negatives of photographs showing IRA prisoners working on the escape tunnel discovered at the Maze two weeks ago.
The pictures, which show the inmates working on digging the tunnel to escape from the Maze, were published in newspapers and magazines throughout the world and were seen as a major propaganda coup for the republican movement.
The Belfast based newsagency which supplied the pictures to the media said the film, when developed showed photographs taken of photographs which had already had faces blocked out. A spokesman, for the agency said the film was dropped through the letterbox on Wednesday evening.
The RUC is still investigating the failed escape attempt at the Maze at the end of March.