Former Northern Ireland Office Minister Adam Ingram told the Billy Wright Inquiry yesterday that he could not remember being told the INLA intended to attack LVF prisoners at the Maze prison in 1997.
Mr Ingram – who was security minister at the NIO at the time of the LVF chief’s murder – said he had no great clarity of a meeting with members of the Prison Officers’ Association (POA) which took place on July 1, 1997.
Earlier this week, POA offi
cial Joseph Duffy told the inquiry panel he warned Mr Ingram during the meeting INLA prisoners at the top security jail had told staff they intended to take out the LVF given the chance.
Mr Ingram said whilst he remembered Mr Duffy he had no recollection of him saying anything about an INLA threat to the LVF.
The former NIO minister also told the inquiry he had absolutely “no recollection whatsoever” of another meeting – also in July 1997 – with representatives of the Northern Ireland Association for the Care and Rehabilitation of Offenders (NIACRO) during which concerns were voiced about the decision to house INLA and LVF prisoners on the same H Block at the Maze.
When pressed by Alan Kane QC – counsel for the Wright family – Mr Ingram accepted concerns had been raised about INLA and LVF prisoners being on the same H Block but he had never reviewed the decision to co-locate the rival paramilitary factions.
However, despite being shown evidence to the contrary by Mr Kane, the former security minister maintained he had been accurate when he informed the House of Commons on January 21, 1998, that block searches and cell fabric checks were ongoing at the Maze in the six months prior to Wright’s murder.
He is expected to conclude his evidence to the Wright Inquiry some time later this month.
