RUC Watched Nelson Killers Meet

Admitting details of Ewing's role as a bomb maker for the first time, he said, "We had a source of intelligence that started to report on the activities of the bomb-maker," he said. "Any intelligence relating to the bomb-maker seemed to be very topical."

Questioned whether anyone other than Ewing could have made the bomb which killed Nelson, he said, "On the Loyalist side the capability to make UCBTs (under car booby traps) was limited.

"Historically there were bomb-makers that could make such devices. However, the recent attacks and the UCBTs that had been used, we believed came from this one individual from the east Belfast area.

"He had produced, I think, a variety of bombs at a certain point in the 1990s."

Revealing how Ewing had sold six under-car booby trap devices to Johnny Adair's infamous C Company unit, he said, "The bomb maker had links to what would be classified as C Company, UDA, in west Belfast. This grouping had also close links with the LVF. "Its leader had close links to the LVF, a number of figures within the LVF."

However, any hope that Ewing could be called to give evidence of his role in the Nelson murder have been dashed after it emerged that he died of a sudden illness a number of years ago.

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Nster.com