A television programme which includes an interview with the former prisoner Michael Stone, jailed for the Milltown Cemetery killings of almost 13 years ago, tonight will allege that British security force collusion with paramilitaries assisted the loyalist in his attack.
In UTV's Insight programme, Stone talks about his attack on the funeral of three IRA members killed in Gibraltar by a British SAS unit. In the attack three men were killed and dozens of women and children were injured.
Stone says in the programme that before the Milltown attack, as well as other attacks he carried out, he received files from Ulster Freedom Fighters' "intelligence officers" containing "very detailed information". Asked whether the files came from the British security forces, however, he does not comment. "Anything I got was from UFF intelligence officers. They collated all the information . . .
granted some of it looked very professional . . . I've no comment to make on that but as I said, the intelligence officers, that's their job - to gather intelligence from wherever and whatever means they can to get that intelligence - I've never actually seen anything with an official stamp on it. I was just shown stuff and told that's the target."
Stone says the IRA funeral of Mairead Farrell, Sean Savage and Dan McCann presented him with a tailor-made opportunity to avenge the IRA's Remembrance Day bombing in Enniskillen in 1987, as well as "take out" the Sinn Fein leadership. He confirms that he received sanction from the UFF leadership for his plans, contradicting original claims that he had acted entirely on his own.