Inquest into the deaths of three IRA men killed in SAS ambush at Coagh to conclude hearing evidence in June

Evidence in an inquest into the deaths of three IRA men killed in an SAS ambush is expected to end next month, a court has been told.

The inquest into the deaths of Peter Ryan, Tony Doris and Lawrence McNally in Coagh, Co Tyrone, in June 1991, opened last year.

Coroner Mr Justice Michael Humphreys told a review hearing sitting in Belfast's Royal Courts of Justice that good progress has been made ahead of finishing proceedings in June.

The men were intercepted as they drove in a stolen car through Coagh by SAS soldiers who suspected they intended to murder a member of the security forces.

All three were shot dead in a hail of gunfire.

Previous hearings were told up to 150 rounds were fired.

The provisional dates to conclude evidence are June 29 and 30, a review hearing was told.

Mr Justice Humphreys said: "I have put a request into court service because we do need facilities.

"I would stress that those will be the final two days of evidence in this inquest, barring some extraordinary development."

The brief hearing was told about arrangements to call the case's final witnesses.

Some further material sought by the coroner from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has been provided, the hearing was also told.

But Mr Justice Humphreys said there was "unchallenged evidence" before the court that "lessons-learned documents" had been created by the MoD - but these had not been provided.

He said: "What I require by way of evidence is an explanation as to what has become of those documents that were demonstrably in existence at one stage."

Peter Coll KC, representing the MoD, said: "The MoD are engaged in a process of trying to understand what their position might be in terms of whether lessons-learned documents did exist.

"If there were lessons-learned documents, obviously they have not been identified and found, so the statement will have to address the processes to find any such documents."

Concluding the review hearing, Mr Justice Humphreys said: "Good progress has been made on a number of the tricky outstanding issues."