Gerard Slane

AT 4.15 on the morning of September 23, 1988, Gerard Slane, a Belfast Roman Catholic, was woken by what sounded like a knocking on his front door. He left his wife and children asleep in their beds and went to investigate. He was confronted by two masked men, who shot him at point-blank range.

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Gerard Slane's murder was organised and planned by Brian Nelson, who provided the assassins with both Slane's picture and his address. He also gave them advice on how to conduct surveillance of Slane in preparation for his murder. Brian Nelson was a British Army agent. He was remunerated by the British Army with an employment package worth about 28,000 (pounds) a year. We have seen the records of Nelson's meetings with his British Army handlers. They suggest that the Army's Force Research Unit recruited Nelson for the specific purpose of ensuring that the UDA's death squads, instead of murdering Catholics indiscriminately, would target only people involved in republican terrorism.