Adams in talks with Orde

Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams has held a first meeting with the PSNI
chief since his party made its historic decision to support British
policing in the North.

He led a delegation to PSNI headquarters at Castlereagh for 90 minutes
of round-table talks with Hugh Orde which he described as "an upfront
discussion on a range of issues".

"We think this is a very important first step in a whole process of
delivering a new relationship between our community and the police," Mr
Adams said.

"We as a leadership are satisfied that in terms of community policing
that a new relationship can be produced in dealing with all of the
crimes which beset the community - muggings, violence in the home, drug
abuse and drug pushing, death riders, hate crimes and all aspects of
such criminality.

"We went through all of that in some great detail."

Mr Adams said the more involved issues they had discussed had centred
on Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan's recent report on PSNI collusion in a
sectarian paramilitary murder campaign.

Mrs O'Loan said in her report last month that there had been collusion
between the PSNI and loyalist paramilitaries in some 15 murders up to
three years ago.

Mr Adams said they had also raised the issue of the overwhelmingly
Protestant force preventing the inquests into the deaths of some
republicans decades ago.

He said yesterday was the 15th anniversary of the killing of four IRA
men in County Tyrone and so far their families had been denied the
right to an inquest.

"We dealt with these issues in some detail and I see today's meeting as
one in the start of a process of engagements so we all get policing
right," he said.

He would not be drawn on whether Hugh Orde was a person he thought he
could do business with.

However, he made the point that Orde had not been a member of the 'old
RUC'.

"He has not been part of what passed for policing for a very long
time," Mr Adams said.

ORDE SUED OVER COLLUSION

* The relatives of four people murdered after PSNI/RUC police collusion
with unionist paramilitaries in the North are suing Hugh Orde.

The families' legal team issued a writ to the PSNI chief in Belfast
yesterday.

A report last month by Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan found officers
from the PSNI/RUC Special Branch had protected their agent, Mark
Haddock, from prosecution for his part in 16 murders in north Belfast
between 1991 and 2003.

The families of Sharon McKenna, Peter McTasney, Gerard Brady and John
Harbinson are taking the action.