Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan of the Royal Ulster Constabulary
Perpetrator
1st Battalion Provisional IRA South Armagh Brigade
The Jonesborough ambush took place on 20 March 1989 near the Irish border outside the village of Jonesborough, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. Two senior Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officers, Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan, were shot dead in an ambush by the Provisional IRA South Armagh Brigade. Breen and Buchanan were returning from an informal cross-border security conference in Dundalk with senior Garda officers when Buchanan's car, a red Vauxhall Cavalier, was flagged down and fired upon by six IRA gunmen, who the policemen had taken for British soldiers. Buchanan was killed outright whilst Breen, suffering gunshot wounds, was forced to lie on the ground and shot in the back of the head after he had left the car waving a white handkerchief. They were the highest-ranking RUC officers to be killed during the Troubles.[1][2]
Nobody has been charged with killing the two officers. There have been allegations that the attack was the result of collusion between the Gardaí and the Provisional IRA. As a result, Canadian judge Peter Cory investigated the killings in 2003; his findings were published in a report. This led to the Irish government setting up the Smithwick Tribunal, a judicial inquiry into the killings which opened in Dublin in June 2011 and published its final report in December 2013. In the Judge Peter Smithwick report he was unable to find direct evidence of collusion but said 'on balance of probability', somebody inside the Dundalk Garda station had passed on information to the IRA regarding the presence of Breen and Buchanan.[3] He added that he was "satisfied there was collusion in the murders".[4]
^Cite error: The named reference bbcon was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Cite error: The named reference sbreen was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^"Smithwick Tribunal finds gardaí colluded with IRA in murder of RUC officers". thejournal.ie. 3 December 2013.
^BBC News Northern Ireland "Smithwick: Collusion in Bob Buchanan and Harry Breen murders" 3 December 2013 Retrieved 4 December 2013
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