Did the British state "have a hand in the murder" of Billy Wright? That was the key question to be answered in the inquiry into the 1997 murder of the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) leader, according to the lawyer representing the Wright family.
The formal oral hearings into Wright's murder, which began in Banbridge, Co Down, yesterday, were also told by Alan Kane QC, for the Wright family, that "thousands" of prison documents that could be relevant to the case were "deliberately destroyed or disappeared".
Mr Kane described the Maze Prison where Wright was murdered by Irish National Liberation Association (INLA) prisoners on December 27th, 1997, as a place where "paramilitaries reigned supreme" with the "knowledge, connivance and acquiescence of the upper echelons of the prison service and political establishment".
He said the Maze, now closed and the potential site of a football stadium, had been "described as a monster beyond control" but that "it was a monster capable of unhindered movement above and below ground".
The tribunal of inquiry under Lord MacLean is due to last at least a year and will take evidence from some 180 witnesses including former prisoners, prison officers and police officers. It was set up as a result of an initial inquiry by retired Canadian judge Peter Cory, who found there was a case to be answered as to whether there was official collusion in Wright's murder.
Wright, first as an Ulster Volunteer Force leader in mid-Ulster and later, after a dispute with the UVF, as LVF leader, was allegedly involved in more than a dozen sectarian murders.
His father, David Wright, who was at yesterday's hearing, campaigned for several years for the inquiry, contending that there was ample evidence of official collusion in the INLA killing of his son. Part of the collusion argument rests on the contention that the authorities wanted Wright dead because he posed a threat at a then crucial stage of the peace process leading up to the signing of the Belfast Agreement in April 1998, which was less than four months after his murder.
Wright was shot dead as he sat in a minibus on his way for a prison visit. He was killed by INLA prisoners who made their way through a hole in a security fence before climbing over a prison roof in order to launch their attack.
Mr Kane and David Batchelor QC, for the inquiry, in their opening submissions referred to various questions posed by the murder including:
By "wrongful act or omission" or negligence, did the authorities "facilitate" Wright's murder? How was the INLA able to smuggle weapons into the high-security prison?
Why were LVF and INLA prisoners housed in the same H-Block, number six, albeit in separate wings, when each posed a threat to the other?
Why was there no one in the watchtower overlooking the yard where Wright was shot?
Why were security cameras in that area not working at the time?
Why were prison documents allegedly destroyed?
Mr Kane also referred to a comment the former RUC chief constable Sir Hugh Annesley made about Wright: "It's just a question of who gets the bastard first - us, the UVF or the IRA. You can take your pick."
The main question to be resolved, added Mr Kane, was: "Did the state have a hand in the murder of Billy Wright?"
