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Shoot-to-kill incident would have been first in decade

In 1992, IRA man Pearse Jordan was shot dead by the RUC after the stolen car he was driving was rammed
In 1992, IRA man Pearse Jordan was shot dead by the RUC after the stolen car he was driving was rammed In 1992, IRA man Pearse Jordan was shot dead by the RUC after the stolen car he was driving was rammed

A SHOOT-to-kill policy carried out by the British Army and police in Northern Ireland is one of the most controversial legacies of the Troubles.

The majority of alleged cases took place during the darkest days of the conflict in the mid-1980s.

But suggestions by a Cork-born British ex-solider allege an attempt to carry out shoot-to-kill operations occurred as recently as the early 2000s.

The solider, writing in his book Charlie One, alleged an SAS unit planned to shoot dead Real IRA members in Omagh.

Although the incident never came to fruition, it would have been the first alleged shoot-to-kill episode in a decade.

In 1992, IRA man Pearse Jordan was shot dead by the RUC after the stolen car he was driving was rammed on the Falls Road in west Belfast.

Several killings in the 1980s were investigated by the Stalker/Sampson report which sought to determine if authorities carried out a shoot-to-kill policy.

Two senior British police detectives John Stalker and Colin Sampson were asked to looking into the killings of three RUC officers and the deaths of six unarmed nationalists six weeks later.

The report however has never been made public.

Other incidents include the shooting dead of eight IRA members by an SAS ambush as they attempted to bomb an RUC station in Loughgall, Co Armagh in 1987.

A civilian was also killed on that occasion.

Another was the killing of three IRA members in Gibraltar in 1988 by SAS soldiers.

And in 1985, three members of the IRA were killed by the SAS in Strabane, Co Tyrone.