Editor wins Real IRA secrecy battle

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Suzanne Breen, northern editor of the Dublin-published Sunday Tribune, was subject to a legal bid by Police Service of Northern Ireland chief constable Sir Hugh Orde, who wanted information on the murders of two British soldiers in March.

Northern Ireland-based Miss Breen received the Real IRA's claim of responsibility for shooting dead Sappers Patrick Azimkar, 21, from London, and Mark Quinsey, 23, from Birmingham, at the gates of Massereene Army Base in Antrim.

Belfast Recorder Tom Burgess acknowledged that there was a great public interest in catching the killers but said the journalist's right to life outweighs that.

Mr Burgess said there was objective evidence that the terror group would target Ms Breen if the information was handed to the authorities, even as a result of a court order.

He rejected police argument that there was no immediate threat to the journalist, stating it was obvious that such a risk would only become real if the data was relinquished. The judge described the Real IRA as a "ruthless and murderous group of people" who would have no hesitation in targeting the reporter.

"The group has the capacity to carry out such threat and is willing to carry out such actions," he said. But the judge also acknowledged that he had faced enormous difficulty in weighing the competing interests in the case.

As well as a mobile phone claim of responsibility, Ms Breen conducted an interview with a member of the dissident terrorist group. When she refused to hand over phone records and notes to officers investigating the security force murders, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) went to court seeking an order to compel her to do so.

But as well as highlighting the risk to herself, the editor claimed the entire profession of journalism would be undermined if the court ordered her to reveal confidential sources.

She told the judge that protection of sources was the lynchpin of investigative journalism and that is was the police's job to investigate crime, not the media's.