THE SOLICITOR FOR the family of murdered RUC officer Pat Breen has accused the Sinn Féin leader of attempting to “legitimise the murder”.

John McBurney was speaking to Newstalk’s Pat Kenny Show in the wake of the Smithwick Tribunal report, which found that there was Garda collusion in the murders of Breen and Robert Buchanan.

Gerry Adams told Newstalk Breakfast today that the two RUC officers, who were travelling to Dundalk to discuss cross-border smuggling, had had a “laissez faire” attitude shown towards their security.

McBurney told Kenny that he “wasn’t surprised that [Adams] would step forward as an apologist for the terrorists who murdered these two fine officers.”

McBurney added that Adams’ attempts to “legitimise what happened” was “abhorrent”.

Adams said that the tribunal’s findings that the IRA had received help from gardaí was not something he was aware of, but added that the two murdered men had been “open” about their movements.

“I say this with as much sensitivity as I can muster: these two prominent RUC members were sitting in Dundalk Garda Station very openly.”

He added that IRA volunteers claimed to have spotted the officers and “noticed a pattern”  in their behaviour:

“When you have that type of laissez faire disregard for their own security by both An Garda Síochána in relation to these two RUC officers and more importantly by these two RUC officers themselves.

“Here they were at the heart of South Armagh, in the middle of a very, very severe conflict at that time and seemed to think that they were immune from attack by the IRA and tragically, as it turned out for them, that wasn’t the case.

“So when you have that type of failure to protect the RUC operatives in the middle of a war then what happened happens

“I’m sure the same thing has happened with IRA volunteers who were killed. It wasn’t necessarily intelligence or inside information, it was simply that they made a mistake. This has happened tragically in all conflicts.”

Note this article has been updated on 5 December 2013 to include full quotes from Gerry Adams.

Read: Smithwick Tribunal: Here’s what happened on the day of the RUC murders

Read: Smithwick Tribunal finds gardaí colluded with IRA in murder of RUC officers

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