A POLICE Ombudsman investigation has found "no evidence" to indicate RUC officers were complicit in the murder of a colleague nor protected those responsible from investigation.
John Larmour was off-duty and working in his brother's ice cream parlour when he was shot dead in south Belfast in 1988.
No one has ever been prosecuted for the murder.
A previous Police Ombudsman report published in 2008 found the police investigation of the attack was not thorough and not all information had been passed to detectives.
Members of Mr Larmour's family subsequently brought new information to the Police Ombudsman’s office and made a range of allegations which implicated RUC Special Branch officers and police informants in the killing.
The police ombudsman's office said the "allegations drew links with a series of other murders and terrorist incidents over a 17-year period".
It said its investigation "looked at each of these issues in so far as they could provide information to support or discount the allegations about Constable Larmour’s murder".
More than 40 witnesses were interviewed and case papers and forensic files examined.
But Police Ombudsman, Dr Michael Maguire said: "We found no evidence to suggest that Special Branch, or any other element within the RUC aided, abetted, counselled or procured John Larmour’s murder, nor that they could they have prevented it.
"Similarly, we found no evidence to support allegations that police failed to charge suspects in the murder or that they protected IRA members from being brought to justice."
