Real IRA founder denies receiving tip off

The founder of the Real IRA has denied he received a tip off from a member of the Garda Siochana about two top Northern Ireland police officers who were later assassinated on the border. Convicted Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt rejected claims that he was given the intelligence on the two senior Royal Ulster Constabulary members during a garda raid on his home in Co.Louth. McKevitt was being questioned at the Special Criminal Court in Dublin during a hearing of the Smitwick Tribunal which is investigating allegations of IRA-Garda collusion in the murders of Bob Buchanan and Harry Breen. He told the tribunal that he "had never got a tip-off from anyone". Ch Supt Breen and Supt Buchanan died in a Provisional IRA ambush minutes after leaving a Garda police meeting on 20 March 1989. It was alleged in subsequent years that a policeman serving in the Irish Republic had leaked details of their movements to the IRA. At the time McKevitt was close to those behind the attack - he is serving a 20-year sentence for directing the Real IRA and is currently held at Portlaoise prison. McKevitt was the Provisional IRA's so-called 'quartermaster' until the late 1990s during which he was in charge of its guns, explosives and ammunition dumps. He split from the mainstream IRA when it decided to call its ceasefire at the organisation's secret convention held in Co.Donegal in 1997.