A senior detective involved in the original investigation into the Loughinisland massacre has denied any wrongdoing on behalf of the RUC.
Ronald Hawthorne, a former sub-divisional police commander, sought along with former Special Branch head Raymond White to quash a Police Ombudsman's report that found major failings in the investigation into the murder of six men.
The retired officers claimed procedural unfairness in the published findings of RUC collusion with loyalists.
Six Catholic men were shot dead as they watched a World Cup match in the Co Down village in 1994.
In December 2017, Mr Justice McCloskey held that the report by Dr Michael Maguire's office was procedurally unfair as it failed to make clear the findings did not apply to Mr Hawthorne.
Lawyers for the ombudsman and victims' families then argued that the judge should withdraw from the case due to his role as a barrister in separate litigation 16 years ago.
Despite rejecting claims that he could be seen as unintentionally biased, Mr Justice McCloskey consented to a limited re-hearing in front of a judicial colleague.
The watchdog also agreed to remove any references to Mr Hawthorne from its report to ensure he is not connected to any alleged wrongdoing.
In November last year Mrs Justice Keegan dismissed an application by the two retired officers to quash the Police Ombudsman report.
She held that the ombudsman had not acted outside his statutory powers in declaring that security force collusion was a feature of the case.
One of the ombudsman's criticisms of the police investigation was the destruction of a getaway car used by the killers and recovered shortly after the murders.
Speaking to the News Letter, Mr Hawthorne said the car, a Triumph Acclaim, was "stripped of all forensic evidence" by Forensic Science Northern Ireland (FSNI) before it was disposed of.
Claiming it spent many months exposed to the elements before being handed back to the RUC by FSNI, he added: "It was an old car rusting badly with algae all over it."
He also said his biggest regret was that there had been no convictions in the case.
Raymond White also spoke to the News Letter, defending the police handling of controversial case.
In November 2017 the documentary No Stone Unturned, by Oscar-nominated film maker Alex Gibney, was released and named some key suspects linked to the loyalist atrocity.
In August last year Durham Police, accompanied by the PSNI, arrested investigative journalists Barry McCaffrey and Trevor Birney who were involved in the making of the critically acclaimed film, over allegations that information had been based on documents stolen from the ombudsman's office.
The two remain on police bail while the police investigation is ongoing.
At a meeting of the Policing Board last week the Chief Constable George Hamilton defended his decision to call an outside force into investigate the claims of missing documents.
