Author and journalist Joe Tiernan claims that Cleary was part of the three-man IRA unit that ambushed and killed part-time Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) corporal Robert McConnell in the garden of his home at Tullyvallen, near Newtownhamilton. Cleary and his team hid in the bushes and when McConnell appeared, Cleary shot him twice in the head, killing him. McConnell had allegedly been a member of both the UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade and the Glenanne gang, both of which carried out sectarian killings. In 1993 Yorkshire Television aired a programme, "The Hidden Hand: The Forgotten Massacre", which implicated McConnell in the 1974 Dublin car bombings. The narrator also claimed McConnell was an Intelligence Corps agent with links to Captain Robert Nairac. RUC Special Patrol Group officer John Weir affirmed this in an affidavit and named McConnell as the perpetrator of a series of sectarian attacks. He also alleged that McConnell had been set up by the Intelligence Corps who passed on confidential information about McConnell to the IRA, through Nairac, in an attempt to infiltrate the organisation. Upon receiving this information, the IRA ordered the execution of McConnell.