One year after the incident involving the shooting of three IRA suspects in Gibraltar, and six months after the ending of the inquest, the issue suddenly re-emerged in a blaze of controversy.

On 15 March 1989, following a ceremony at which twenty-two Spanish policemen were given awards for their part in tracking the IRA activists, the Spanish police confirmed that they had in fact informed the British security forces on 6 March 1988 that the three suspects had left Torremolinos and were heading for Gibraltar but without arms or explosives. At the inquest the official British version had been that the Spanish police had failed to pass on this information, and that the SAS had not therefore known exactly when the terrorists would arrive on the Rock or whether they were armed. This version had been used to absolve the members of the SAS of unlawful killing at the inquest held during September 1988, although it was strongly contested by the solicitor representing the families of the victims.

A report in The Sunday Times on 2 April 1989, which was highlighted in the Spanish press the following day, also suggested that two British army bomb-disposal experts had known that the car which was to have been used in the terrorist attack did not in fact contain a car-bomb, but they were over-ruled by a military adviser who was designated to testify at the inquest.

A further revelation of the report was that the British authorities had asked the Spanish police not to pursue the terrorists in order not to arouse suspicions.