Investigation into loyalist murder of Peter Gallagher 'wholly inadequate'
A police investigation into the murder of a man by loyalists in Belfast in 1993 was "wholly inadequate", the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland has found.
Peter Gallagher, a 44-year-old father of seven from Toomebridge in Co Antrim, was shot dead at an industrial park in west Belfast in March of that year.
His family complained to the Police Ombudsman's Office about the thoroughness of the original murder investigation.
Today, the ombudsman found that although 12 people should have been of interest to investigating detectives, none had been arrested.
Marie Anderson said this was despite the fact that some were linked "by significant, and on occasion corroborative intelligence and other information".
Mr Gallagher was shot dead by elements of the west Belfast Ulster Defence Association (UDA) based around the Shankill Road known as 'C Company'.
Ms Anderson also criticised a decision to stand down surveillance on members of the gang even though at the time it had proven disruptive and the authorities knew attacks were being planned.
The intelligence focus had been switched to the activities of the IRA.
Within two days of surveillance being suspended, the UDA had murdered Mr Gallagher and 17-year-old Damien Walsh also in west Belfast.
Ms Anderson said the decision to switch the surveillance focus ought to have been re-examined in light of the intelligence picture about the heightened risk of UDA attacks.
"I am of the view that the failure to do so provided `C Company' greater opportunity to mount terrorist attacks on the nationalist community, culminating in the murders of Peter Gallagher and Damien Walsh," she said.
However, the police ombudsman said she had found no intelligence, which if acted upon by police, would have prevented Mr Gallagher's murder.
Neither was there any evidence that members of the security forces had provided information to loyalists to facilitate the attack.
No one has ever been convicted for either murder.
The ombudsman's report said the police investigation had zoned in on three principal suspects in respect of Mr Gallagher's murder.
Ballistic tests revealed that a 9mm Browning pistol used to murder him had been amongst a batch smuggled into Northern Ireland from South Africa in December 1987.
The police ombudsman said the investigations into the Gallagher and Walsh murders ought to have been linked and that the failure to do so had resulted in a "fragmented investigative approach" which had undermined both murder inquiries.
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