Brian Nelson (1948 – 11 April 2003) was a Northern Ireland British Army Intelligence Corps agent who also operated as the intelligence chief of the loyalist Ulster Defence Association (UDA) paramilitary organisation.[1]
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Nelson, a Protestant from the Shankill Road, Belfast, served with the Black Watch regiment before joining the UDA in the early 1970s, where he was a low-level informant.[1] In 1974 he was jailed for seven years for the kidnap and torture of Gerald Higgins, a partially sighted Roman Catholic man who died shortly afterwards. Nelson served three years[2][3] He left for a construction job in West Germany but in 1985 British Military Intelligence asked him to rejoin and infiltrate the UDA. He became the organisation's senior intelligence officer where he received assistance from his handlers who, in one instance, organised, streamlined and returned to Nelson a suitcase full of disorganised UDA intelligence.[1]
In the early 1990s, following the shooting of Loughlin Maginn, John Stevens was appointed to investigate collusion between the paramilitaries and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). Stevens was able to use advanced fingerprint technology, then unavailable to the RUC. The Inquiry team discovered Nelson's fingerprints on some security force documents and they began the investigations that, despite the obstructions encountered, would eventually lead to Nelson's arrest.[4]
When the Stevens Inquiry Team arrested Nelson, he immediately pressed upon them that he had been acting on behalf on the British Government. Stevens spoke to John Deverell, head of MI5 in Belfast, who confirmed that Nelson worked for the British Army and not the RUC. However, as the RUC had supremacy, they should have been in full control. Sharp disagreements developed between the two security branches as the extent of Nelson's illegal activities within the Force Research Unit (FRU) was uncovered.[5]
Over two months Nelson dictated a police statement covering 650 pages. He revealed that he had been tasked by both the British Army and the Protestant paramilitaries to make the UDA a more effective killing machine. Using information that should have been confidential to the army he produced dossiers or "Intelligence Packages" including backgrounds, addresses, photos and movements on proposed targets. These were then passed on to the killers.[5]
Nelson also had his blue card index system whereby he would pick out information on individuals from the mass of information reaching him. The selection of names for the index was Nelson's alone and Stevens concluded that Nelson was actually choosing the people who were going to be shot - if an Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) killer had a vague notion of targeting someone in a particular area, Nelson would pass over a card, relevant or otherwise.[5]
In one instance the paramilitaries requested information on 14 prospective Sinn Féin councillors. Nelson passed on the names of only ten people to his FRU handlers claiming he could not remember the others. Those ten were never targeted while the other four, including solicitor Pat Finucane, were all shot dead. In John Stevens' words "the FRU had been inexcusably careless in failing to protect the four who lost their lives."[5]
Nelson also handed out his blue cards, between twenty and fifty at a time, to members of the Ulster Volunteer Force. The FRU had no agents within the UVF and these people were consequently unprotected.[5]
Fortunately for the Stevens Inquiry, many killers never bothered to destroy their blue cards and the team was able to obtain fingerprint evidence.[5]
At his trial in 1992,[1] the prosecution alleged that he failed to alert his handlers to all the assassination plans of which he was aware.[6] Gordon Kerr ('Colonel J'), a senior officer who has since himself been investigated, testified on Nelson's behalf; claiming that he had warned them of UDA targeting of more than 200 people, including the Sinn Féin President, Gerry Adams. The early warning meant that only three had been subsequently killed.[1] Nelson further claimed that he had warned Military Intelligence of the UFF plans to kill solicitor Pat Finucane, but that Mr Finucane had not been given the warning.[7]
Eventually Nelson pleaded guilty to 20 charges, including five of conspiracy to murder and was sentenced to 10 years. However, a number of charges against Nelson, including two murders, were quietly dropped as part of his plea agreement.[1]
Following Nelson's conviction, the BBC Panorama programme "Dirty War", broadcast on 8 June 1992, made new claims about Nelson's involvement in further murders and conspiracies. One allegation was that, following a tip off from Nelson, army intelligence kept secret a plot to murder Paddy McGrory, a solicitor representing the families of the Gibraltar Three.[8] A further claim was that soldiers aided Nelson's research on behalf of the UFF by photographing IRA member Anto Murray's home. It was further alleged that Nelson's army handlers encouraged him to bomb a Cork oil refinery.[7]
In January 1993 Gerry Adams claimed that the Government was fully aware of Nelson's involvement in the January 1988 import of weapons[9] from South Africa[10] including 200 AK47 rifles; 90 Browning pistols; 500 fragmentation grenades and 12 RPG 7 rocket launchers. This, together with the reliance by loyalists on leaked, though often outdated, intelligence files on potential targets, meant that by 1992, loyalists were once again killing more than the republicans, a situation not seen since 1975.[9]
Previously Northern Ireland Secretary, Sir Patrick Mayhew, had claimed that the Nelson affair was dead and buried.[9] However, in May 1993, a San Francisco judge, in the extradition case of escaped maze prisoner, James Joseph Smyth, demanded disclosure in court of suppressed reports including documents on Nelson or risk having the case abandoned.[11]
Some sources claim that Nelson set up the killing of Francisco Notarantonio in order to divert the UDA/UFF from targeting Frederico Scappatici. Sam McCrory was given his first assignment and on 9 October 1987, Notarantonio, a 66 year old who had been interned in 1971[12] but had not been active for more than 40 years, was shot dead at his home in Ballymurphy, West Belfast.[13]
Brian Nelson died of a brain haemorrhage on 11 April 2003, aged 55.[14]