Files on infamous loyalist terror boss Billy "King Rat" Wright have been lost or deliberately destroyed, an inquiry into his murder was told today.
As the tribunal set up to inquire into alleged state collusion in his assassination began public hearings, lawyers revealed difficulties in securing vital documents from police, prison and intelligence services.
Alan Kane, lawyer for the Wright family
Wright (37) who led the ruthless Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF), was ambushed by republicans inside Northern Ireland's top security Maze jail in December 1997.
There have been claims that Wright was killed with the assistance of the security forces because he could reveal information about state collusion in the murder of nationalists and potentially upset the peace process.
Alan Kane, lawyer for the Wright family launched a scathing attack on the regime inside the now shut-down Maze.
"It was a prison where paramilitaries reigned supreme," Mr Kane told Banbridge Courthouse in Co Down, where the inquiry will sit for up to a year.
This happened "all at the knowledge, connivance and acquiescence of the upper echelons of the Prison Service and political establishment.
"It [the Maze] has been described as a monster beyond control. It was a monster capable of unhindered movement above and below ground."
Wright, who quit the Ulster Volunteer Force after a bitter dispute - to set up the LVF - has been linked to at least a dozen murders.
After studying his case, the retired Canadian judge Peter Cory recommended three years ago that an inquiry be set up to examine allegations of collusion.
Wright was shot dead as he sat in the back of a minibus waiting to go on a prison visit.
His father, David Wright, who attended today's opening, has demanded to know how the three-man Irish National Liberation Army team were able to get to their target.
They managed to climb through a hole in security fencing and clambered over a roof before opening fire.
An inquest into Wright's death later found no one was staffing the observation tower overlooking the prison yard where the attack took place, and that surveillance cameras were not working even though they had earlier been reported as faulty.
Warnings were also given to prison authorities months earlier, that an attack on Wright was being planned, it was claimed.
As the inquiry got under way Mr Kane said he was astounded that two guns and ammunition had been available within such a high security facility.
But the question over obtaining papers from the relevant authorities was central. Mr Kane alleged: "Thousands of prison documents and journals have been deliberately destroyed or disappeared."
And Derek Batchelor QC, senior counsel for the inquiry also disclosed the hold ups in obtaining material primarily from the PSNI, he said. This was despite the issuing of four formal legal notices requesting the hand-over of information stretching back to November 2005.
Only this month the inquiry had received a substantial volume of papers, Mr Batchelor revealed. There were also gaps in the documentation supplied by prison authorities and the security service, he added.
The chairman of the tribunal, Lord MacLean, who will oversee proceedings expected to involve up to 180 witnesses, also told how relevant material has not always been supplied as fast as possible.
He said: "I said in December 2005 that the inquiry had exercised its powers under the Inquiries Act 2005 and served notices in accordance with Section 21 of that Act.
"That process has continued over the last 18 months and may not yet be over."
Lord MacLean added: "Although hearings start today, the inquiry's investigatory work is still not complete.
"This is due to a number of factors, not least the speed at which material has been provided to the inquiry, particularly from the Police Service of Northern Ireland."