A solicitor who acts for a former career criminal who says he was an MI5 hitman during the Troubles believes his account is credible.
Kevin Winters, of KRW Law, was speaking as it emerged former gangster Paul Cleeland has admitted killing five republicans and loyalists during the Troubles in a sworn affidavit.
He has also confessed to killing a man he describes as a “tramp”.
In 1973 Mr Cleeland was convicted of the murder of his business partner Terry Clarke in England the previous year.
He claims he was “framed” for the murder after he was “of no further use to the intelligence branches”.
Sentenced to life, he served 27 years and continues to insist he is innocent.
Mr Cleeland said that during his time in prison he met a man who was also involved in the series of murders in the north, adding that the individual, who was also a state agent, admitted planting the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings on behalf of British intelligence.
Mr Cleeland’s solicitor Kevin Winters, of KRW Law, said his affidavit is “the earliest evidence of state sanctioned murders in the history of the conflict”.
“It confirms the over-arching role of the intelligence services was in play from the very start of The Troubles,” he said.
“The state’s oversight in these series of killings is the earliest prototype on what was later to become the MRF (Military Reaction Force).
“It also is one of if the earliest examples of what we later came to know as ‘collusion’.”
Mr Winters said his client’s account is credible.
“It’s a measure of the credibility of Mr Cleeland’s narrative that he’s prepared to swear on affidavit to admissions to murder,” he said.
“It says it all that he feels he can publicly admit to murder and yet be so confident that he will never be prosecuted let alone even arrested.
“Our client was never investigated for his role in these state intelligence agencies inspired murders yet he went to jail on the one murder he had no involvement in.”
“He was set up and sent to jail for a murder he never committed in order to silence him.
“It was to stop him exposing the hand of the state in all these killings.”
Mr Winters, who also represents relatives of some of those killed in the Birmingham bombings, said his client wants to “expose state intelligence conspiracy to murders as part of his decades-long campaign to clear his name through the courts in England”.
“All previous attempts to expose this extraordinary state sponsored criminal murder conspiracy have fallen on deaf ears.
“This is the first time any media spotlight has been shone on such a dark recess of the conflict.”
The solicitor said his client is throwing down the gauntlet “to the authorities to arrest him but he knows that will never happen”.
“The moment they do that is the moment they expose themselves to some very uncomfortable criminal and civil liabilities,” he said.
Mr Winters, an experienced legacy lawyer, said Mr Cleeland’s story is familiar and referenced former British military intelligence officer Colin Wallace, who was wrongly convicted of manslaughter in the 1980s and spent six years behind bars.
“Paul’s narrative chimes with other similar state engineered machinations to deprive people of their liberty,” he said.
“The very same mantra was deployed to send Colin Wallace to jail for a murder he didn’t commit.
“The same thing happened here as well with Mr Cleeland.
“Having this type of media exposure will help support his campaign to clear his name by opening the door to the courts in London again.”
Mr Winters added that a “previous media shut down on his case has now at last been lifted”.
“For the first time in many years he can look forward with some hope that his wrongful conviction for murder will be over turned,” he said.
