 He also added that sanction for the ambush and killing of such high-ranking RUC officers as Breen and Buchanan would have come from the highest echelons of the IRA's Northern Command.A former RUC assistant chief constable told the Tribunal that Breen and Buchanan had been warned against going to Dundalk at a meeting on 16 March 1989, but that they had disobeyed orders.Breen's widow, however, denied that her late husband had attended the meeting as he had spent that day with her, and Breen's diary recorded that on 16 March he was on leave.