Two Belfast-based journalists, one of whom is from Enniskillen, are to have their case over what they believe to be 'covert State surveillance' investigated by the UK Investigatory Powers Tribunal.
Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey lodged a complaint with the Tribunal in 2019 over previous police action associated with the documentary film 'No Stone Unturned' which focused on the Loughinisland Massacre in 1994.
The journalists have been informed that the PSNI accessed Mr McCaffrey's phone records and data in 2013 when they made an "open and legitimate press inquiry" about police corruption at that time.
Speaking to Northern Sound, Mr Birney who created the three-part documentary 'Quinn' and the companion book by the same name highlighted how today's findings are both a "shocking and disturbing" development in the case.
He added that he wants the tribunal to provide an open hearing that will get to the truth of what the PSNI has been doing to journalists for more than a decade. "Journalists in Northern Ireland learn to work under the suspicion that the PSNI or other intelligence agencies are monitoring their phone calls.
"To discover the PSNI covertly monitoring Barry's phone data while he worked for The Detail, is a shocking and very disturbing development in our case. What we've been told amounts to an egregious attack on the freedom of the press by the PSNI.
"We hope the Investigatory Powers Tribunal is both an open hearing and will be able to get to the truth of what the PSNI have been doing to journalists over the past decade and more. We'd realised during our Judicial Review that the PSNI had us under surveillance in the lead up to our arrest. But now we learn that they were monitoring Barry's phone 10 years ago," he added.
Meanwhile, The Loughinisland massacre took place on the 18th of June 1994 in the small Co Down village. Members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), a loyalist paramilitary group, burst into a pub with assault rifles and fired on the customers.
Six civilians died and five were wounded. The pub was targeted because it was frequented mainly by Catholics and was crowded with people watching the Republic of Ireland play against Italy in the 1994 FIFA World Cup. The UVF claimed the attack was in retaliation for the killing of three UVF members by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA).
