Detectives decided to question him after details of the murders were revealed in a new book which claimed Fulton worked undercover as an army agent within the Provisional IRA at the height of their terrorist campaign.

Fulton has been living away from Northern Ireland for several years after claiming he was ditched by his former military handlers.

He is currently seeking High Court compensation after alleging the army reneged on a deal to pay him.

He was quizzed about the murders of:

: Eoin Morley, 23, an ex-IRA man who joined a republican splinter group and who was dragged from his girlfriend's home in Newry in April 1990 and shot in a so-called punishment attack that apparently went wrong. His mother claimed he was the victim of an IRA vendetta against her late husband Davy, which went back to the time he was an IRA leader in the Maze Prison over 20 years previously.

:: Royal Irish Ranger Cyril Smith, 21, who was killed by an IRA bomb six months after Morley. He was blown up as he ran to alert other soldiers at a permanent vehicle checkpoint on the main Belfast-Dublin road close to the border outside Newry.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland said the man arrested in South East England last Wednesday had been released without charge.

They did not say whether he had been taken back to England or left to make his own way home.

The probe of 25 loyalist atrocities, carried out by a panel of human rights experts from around the world, found senior Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officers were aware and approved of collusion while officials in London had enough information to intervene.

The panel's report also called on the British government to appoint an independent inquiry to examine how high up the chain of command collusion went.

Professor Cassel told PA at the Belfast presentation of the report: "Personally I was shocked.

"The British government has a reputation around the world as one of the leading democracies and one of the longest histories of the rule of law.

"To find this extent of collusion in murders in the 25 incidents we investigated was shocking."

The panel was asked by the Derry-based human rights organisation the Pat Finucane Centre to investigate allegations of collusion in 25 loyalist attacks from October 1972 to February 1977 - most of which are linked to a loyalist gang known as the Glenanne group.

Among the incidents they investigated were the May 1974 Dublin Monaghan bombings which claimed 33 lives, the Miami Showband massacre in July 1975 during which three musicians and two members of the Ulster Volunteer Force gang died and the shooting of Catholic policeman Sergeant Joe Campbell in February 1977.

In only one case, the group was unable to reach a verdict on collusion because of conflicting accounts - the murder of 51-year-old driver James Marks and 78-year-old passenger Joseph Toland in a gun attack in Gilford, Co Armagh, on a minibus returning from bingo.

The panel also met members of three organisations representing republican victims of violence - Families Acting for Innocent Relatives, SAVER/NAVER, both in Markethill, Co Armagh, and the WAVE Trauma Centre in Belfast which caters for the victims of loyalist violence also.

Among the stories they heard were the murder of a woman in an acid and petrol bomb attack on a bus in Armagh in 1972, the shooting of a man pulled from a digger in Mullaghbawn as he cleaned drains on his farm, the killing of three UDR men when a lorry carrying a 1,000lb bomb rolled into their barracks at Glenanne in 1991 and a South Armagh farmer's account of the intimidation of Protestants who were driven from their land.

They also heard allegations by at least one former RUC man that An Garda Siochána was not co-operative in bringing to justice IRA fugitives who fled across the border.

While the panel's remit was to probe collusion in loyalist killings, Professor Cassel confirmed today: "There are some allegations we received of alleged failure of the Garda or the Irish authorities to properly co-operate with law enforcement in cases of violence against loyalists here in Northern Ireland.

"We will certainly be raising that with the Irish Government."

The report called for:

Investigations by an independent team into allegations of collusion in murders and attempted murders by loyalists, capable of identifying those involved, examining how high up the chain of command it went and focusing not just on RUC and UDR involvement but also British Army and intelligence agencies;

Investigations into murders carried out by republican groups;

Full co-operation by paramilitary groups on both sides with credible official investigations into collusion;

The publishing of the findings of all investigations, including those by the Historical Enquiries Team which currently plans only to share its findings with victims' families;

The state to acknowledge publicly its responsibility in sectarian killings where collusion is established, and

Public apologies from senior officials to the families of victims of collusion.

The international panel welcomed reforms introduced by the British government to investigate controversial murders, but they claimed they were still insufficient for getting to the heart of collusion cases.

The North's police ombudsman Nuala O'Loan, they said, did not have the powers to investigate collusion involving members of the UDR.

The £30m (€44.75m) Historical Enquiries Team (HET), set up by Police Service of Northern Ireland chief constable Hugh Orde, also fell short of international standards for investigations.

Professor Cassel revealed the investigation did not receive police documents which could have assisted the probe despite coming away from a June 2004 meeting with Northern Ireland Chief Constable Hugh Orde, believing they would receive key documents.

Mr Orde, he said, informed them two months later instead that the documentation was being given to the HET's predecessor, the Serious Crime Review Team.

He said the drawback of the HET's investigation was that the HET was police-based and therefore when witnesses or perpetrators died off, areas of investigation were also closed down.

"The Historical Enquiries Team has been set up to examine all of the 3268 deaths which occurred as a result of the security situation in Northern Ireland between 1969 and 1998," he said.

"To date it has engaged with over 200 families and are dealing with in excess of 750 questions which those families have asked it to answer in the course of investigations. Every case will be looked at thoroughly, impartially and professionally and where there are grounds for further investigation and prosecution appropriate action will be taken.

"I have said from the very beginning that the Historical Enquiries Team is only one part of the solution to the difficult and sensitive issues around Northern Ireland's recent history. I believe that a wider debate has to happen and a wider process is needed, however so far this team is the only piece of concrete work that is ongoing in relation to these issues and whilst I do not say it is the answer to every question it offers real answers to many, many, families who are deciding to engage with it.

"This particular panel did not meet with or consult directly with the Historical Enquiries Team, I would invite them to come and see for themselves how the investigations and work with the families are progressing."

Professor Cassel called on the British government to establish an independent investigation that was sufficiently broad to investigate the depth, strength and extent of collusion across the security forces.

He confirmed the panel would press for meetings with the British government at all levels to ensure the allegations they uncovered were taken seriously.

He also confirmed they had requested a meeting with the Irish government tomorrow after the report is presented in Dublin.

The panel would also request a meeting with the Westminster Joint Committee on Human Rights and would present the Council of Europe with a copy of the report.

Alan Brecknell, whose 32-year-old father Trevor was one of three people killed in a loyalist gun attack on Donnelly's Bar in Silverbridge Co Armagh in December 1975, welcomed the report.

"What is certainly important for our family is the acknowledgement from people of the standing of Douglass, Susie Kemp, Stephen Sawyer and Piers Pigou - people with a human rights background in South Africa, Guatemela, Sierra Leone, El Salvador - that they were able to take time out and come to listen to the families' stories in a humane, sympathetic way," he said at the launch.

"This report is a pressure point. It's someone else saying the British government really has questions to answer and should answer these questions.

"It is also heartening to hear Douglass saying he's going to the European Council of Ministers with this. That is a big thing for me to hear, to learn that there is not just going to be press launches of this report today and tomorrow.

"It's good to know that while we will be pushing for the truth from here, they will be pushing for it as well."

Sinn Féin MP Conor Murphy, who attended the presentation, said the report lifted the lid on security force involvement in the attacks, producing irrefutable evidence.

"For many years Sinn Féin was a lone voice in exposing British state collusion with unionist paramilitaries," the Newry and Armagh MP said.

"We were vilified by the political and media establishment who dismissed claims of collusion as 'republican propaganda'.

"We have now been vindicated and will continue to stand with the families of those killed by the British state in their search for the truth.

"The British state is going to have to face up to its role in the systematic murder of more than 1,100 nationalists and republicans both directly and through their surrogates in the various unionist death squads."

They also urged the authorities in the Irish Republic to investigate the claims made about their police.

In response to the report, Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde said the PSNI's Historical Enquiries Team was set up to examine all of the 3,268 killings during the Troubles.

"This particular panel did not meet with or consult directly with the Historical Enquiries Team," Sir Hugh said.

"I would invite them to come and see for themselves how the investigations and work with the families are progressing.''

The report said: "Credible evidence indicates that superiors of violent, extremist officers and agents, at least within the RUC, were aware of their sectarian crimes, yet failed to act to prevent, investigate or punish them.


By 1975, senior officials were also informed that some RUC police officers were 'very close' to extremist paramilitaries
Law experts' report

"On the contrary, they allegedly made statements that appeared to condone participation in these crimes."

The panel was convened two years ago at the request of the Londonderry-based Pat Finucane Centre.

It examined 25 incidents on both sides of the Irish border, including:

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The murder of 33 people in UVF bomb attacks in Dublin and Monaghan on 17 May 1974

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The shooting of three members of the Miami Showband - Fran O'Toole, 29, Anthony Geraghty, 23, and Brian McCoy, 33, after a UVF gang posing as an Ulster Defence Regiment patrol flagged their bus down on 31 July 1975.

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The killing of Patrick Connolly, 23, on 4 October 1972 in a grenade attack on his Portadown home by the Ulster Volunteer Force

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The double murder by the UVF of Catholic Patrick Molloy, 46, and Protestant Jack Wylie, 49, in a bomb attack at Augenlig in County Armagh

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The shooting dead of six men in separate UVF gun attacks on two families in County Armagh on 4 January 1976

The panel added: "As early as 1973, senior officials of the United Kingdom were put on notice of the danger - and indeed some of the facts - of sectarian violence by UDR soldiers using stolen UDR weapons and ammunition, and supported by UDR training and information.

"At least by 1975, senior officials were also informed that some RUC police officers were 'very close' to extremist paramilitaries."

The report also said there had been "allegations by at least one former RUC man that the Gardai, the police force of the Republic of Ireland, was not co-operative in bringing fugitives who fled across the border to justice".

The British government told the panel it would be inappropriate to comment as the murders are the subject of inquiries by a number of agencies.

These included the European Court of Human Rights, the PSNI Historical Enquiries Team, and the Police Ombudsman.

'Final chance'

Copies of the 108-page report have been given to the British government and the Police Ombudsman's Office.

The independent panel who produced the report were: Professor Douglass Cassel of Notre Dame Law School in the US; Susie Kemp, an international lawyer based in The Hague; Piers Pigou - an investigator for the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Stephen Sawyer of Northwestern University School of Law.

Last year, the Irish government said it was giving Tony Blair a final chance to aid an inquiry into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings.

Irish premier Bertie Ahern said he may take a case to the European Court of Human Rights if Mr Blair did not hand over British government files on the bombings.

No-one was convicted of the bombings.

He jailed the former north London schoolboy for life at Woolwich Crown Court in London today and said he would have to serve at least 40 years in jail before being considered for release.

Mr Butterfield explained that, had he given Barot a determinate sentence he would have received 80 years, and that therefore his life tariff would be set at half that.

Barot, one of the most senior al Qaida terrorists ever captured by British security agencies in the War on Terror and a key lieutenant of the network's leading figures, sat impassively as the judge announced the massive jail term.

At the end of the sentencing, he simply picked up a bundle of papers before being led away by several court officers to begin his incarceration. The minimum 40-year tariff means Barot will be almost 75 by the time he is released.

His two-day sentencing hearing had heard how he prepared two terror atrocities in meticulous detail for the approval of his al Qaida "overlords". The first was to collapse five key financial institutions in Washington, New York and Newark, using explosives-packed limousines in underground car parks or by ramming oil tankers into them.

His second was aimed at Britain, and involved a repeat of the limousines plan, together with al Qaida's first ever dirty bomb, a gas attack on the Heathrow Express and a plot to blow up a Tube train under the Thames.

Mr Butterfield said it was clear that Barot's "chilling" plans were "no idle plot", but a "determined, sophisticated and deadly design" to murder thousands of innocent people.

Had he not been thwarted by the police and security services his plans would have resulted in a "terrible massacre" and brought "grief, bewilderment, devastation and anger" to those left behind to mourn, the judge said.

Thousands more would have been left "hideously injured", having to live their lives with disabilities, "their hopes and dreams for the future destroyed at your hands".

"This was no noble cause," Mr Butterfield told Barot. "Your plans were to bring indiscriminate carnage, bloodshed and butchery, first in Washington, New York and Newark, and thereafter the UK on a colossal and unprecedented scale.

"Your intention was not simply to cause damage, panic or fear. Your intention was to murder, but it went further. It was designed to strike at the very heart of democracy and the security of the state and if successful, would have affected thousands personally, millions indirectly and ultimately the whole nation of the US and the UK."

Mr Butterfield described Barot as a "dedicated and highly dangerous" individual who was highly intelligent and skilled in the "black arts" of terrorism.

His horrific terror plots were set out like "business plans, as if corporate reports going to head office". However, they were dealing not with a business proposition, the judge said, "they were concerned with murder, with the incalculable loss of blameless life."

The head of Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch, Peter Clarke, described Barot as a "full time terrorist" whose plans could have killed hundreds, if not thousands.

"He was stopped before he could attack the British and American people," Mr Clarke said.

"As always our concern for public safety was paramount.

"For well over two years we have been unable to show the British public the reality of the threat they faced from this man. Now they can see for themselves the full horror of his plan."

Home Secretary John Reid said the "nature and severity" of Barot's sentence demonstrated that the terrorist threat was "very real and serious".

"His case highlights the extraordinary investigative work that is undertaken and shows the importance of ensuring that the police are provided with all the tools they need to counter the continuing threat," he said.

"We owe a tremendous debt to the police and intelligence agencies."