In 1989 the FRU passed information to the UDA which the loyalist gang used to murder the Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane, who was shot dead in front of his wife and children. Last week, Prime Minister Tony Blair pledged that the Government was determined to uncover the truth about Finucane's murder. The Canadian judge Peter Cory who was called in by the government to investigate the case is expected to recommend a public inquiry. The Irish government is also pressing for an inquiry of its own.
So who was the overall controller of the FRU with its "licence to kill" republicans? Until now it seemed that responsibility for the activities of the FRU rested on the shoulders of one man - Brigadier Gordon Kerr, the Scottish officer who led the unit and is now the British military attache to Beijing. A two-part BBC Panorama programme, concluding tonight, much of it based on the Sunday Herald's previous investigations, puts Kerr squarely in the frame.
But if Fulton's claims are correct, then Kerr, soon to be questioned by the Stevens team, was just one link in a chain of command which went all the way to the cabinet and the Prime Minister. As Fulton says: "Kerr was just following orders. Soldiers don't make up the rules, they just do as they're told."
So who was the overall controller of the FRU with its "licence to kill" republicans? Until now it seemed that responsibility for the activities of the FRU rested on the shoulders of one man - Brigadier Gordon Kerr, the Scottish officer who led the unit and is now the British military attache to Beijing. A two-part BBC Panorama programme, concluding tonight, much of it based on the Sunday Herald's previous investigations, puts Kerr squarely in the frame.
But if Fulton's claims are correct, then Kerr, soon to be questioned by the Stevens team, was just one link in a chain of command which went all the way to the cabinet and the Prime Minister. As Fulton says: "Kerr was just following orders. Soldiers don't make up the rules, they just do as they're told."