SAOIRSE32

RTE

21 August 2005 21:29

Police in Belfast have released without charge a man they were questioning in connection with the murder of teenager Thomas Devlin.

The 15-year-old was stabbed five times when walking home from a garage in the Fortwilliam area of Belfast on 10 August.

Police carried out a reconstruction of his final moments earlier this week.
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Police say they want to speak to two men who were seen at the filling station on the night of the murder.

IOL

21/08/2005 - 18:12:18

The police were tonight accused of not doing enough to stop sectarian rioting in Belfast which involved up to 400 people and raged for eight hours.

One person was injured during the clashes between Nationalists and Loyalists, which erupted in Cluan Place and Clandeboye Gardens in the east of the city around 6pm yesterday.

The Ulster Unionist Party and Sinn Féin said the trouble should have been dealt with more effectively.

But the Police Service of Northern Ireland defended its response and said it could not resolve community tensions on its own.

Police sources described the riot as spontaneous but it is thought it may have been triggered by the Rangers v Celtic match in Glasgow yesterday afternoon.

East Belfast MLA Michael Copeland said he had raised concerns about trouble flaring in the area but claimed no action was taken.

“I had warned police that attacks against the residents have been on-going, at a low level, for a number of weeks and asked for additional resources to be directed towards the area,” he said.

“Last week I expressed my concern three times to the police that there was the potential for disorder given the Old Firm game.

“Over the weekend, missiles rained on residents, many of which involved some degree of preparation, pointing to a planned and orchestrated attack.”

Sinn Féin East Belfast representative Deborah Devenny said the police failed to swiftly crackdown on the rioters.

Ms Devenny said: “The PSNI have once again demonstrated their unwillingness to deal with loyalist thugs intent upon intimidating the people of this area.

“The PSNI have absolutely no control over this situation and when challenged responded that they did not have the resources to deal with it.”

BBC

**Posting again

The aftermath of hours of rioting in the area

About 400 nationalists and loyalists have clashed during several hours of rioting in east Belfast.

The violence erupted in Cluan Place and Clandeboye Gardens at about 1800 BST on Saturday. The police said bottles and bricks were thrown. One man was hurt.

Up to five shots were heard during the rioting. Army technical officers made safe a suspect device found in Clandeboye Gardens at about 0130 BST.

As they left, bottles were thrown at police vehicles. One man was arrested.

The injured man was treated in hospital for a head wound.

A Police Service of Northern Ireland spokeswoman said about 200 members from each side were involved in the rioting.

Some politicians said simmering tensions in the area appeared to have boiled over following a band parade on the Newtownards Road and the Old Firm football match between Celtic and Rangers.

Loyalists and nationalists are separated by a so-called peace wall

Ulster Unionist assembly member Michael Copeland said Cluan Place came under attack.

He said he was concerned that the Army were not deployed to help the police deal with the situation.

“I feel a certain degree of sympathy for some of the police officers on the ground but anyone who looked at the potentiality of yesterday evening could have fairly easily predicted what might happen.

“And sometimes when you predict what might happen you can put resources in place on both sides to prevent it happening,” Mr Copeland said.

Sinn Fein’s Debra Devenney said the Short Strand had been under attack from loyalists for the past week.

Calm restored

“This cannot be allowed to escalate, people cannot live like this. They don’t deserve to live like this and it needs to be resolved,” she said.

“I would urge unionist politicians to contact me, try to work something out, that we can get some sort of a settlement here that people don’t have to go through this.”

The SDLP’s Alasdair McDonnell condemned what he said was “mindless sectarian violence”.

“It is incredibly fortunate that many people were not seriously injured or worse during what was hours of concentrated and hate-filled rioting.”

The police said calm was restored to the area at 0230 BST after community leaders from both sides intervened.

Sunday Life

The screw tightened on screwing screws

By Ciaran McGuigan
21 August 2005

THE law has been laid down to staff at Ulster’s scandal-hit jails.

For prison officers at Maghaberry, Magilligan and Hydebank have been told they must adhere to a new set of rules.

The new formal ‘Statement of Ethics’ follows a series of scandals at Maghaberry prison in Co Antrim, where several warders were sacked when they were discovered to be having steamy sex sessions with inmates.

Among those booted out was former UDR man Stanley McCarten, dismissed after a fling with the then-imprisoned Lesley Gault.

Self-confessed adulteress Gault was being held in the women’s wing awaiting trial for the murder of her husband, Paul. She was found not guilty at the end of her third trial.

But she had already started her steamy relationship with McCarten, who later moved into her Lisburn home.

Another officer was accused of having a jailhouse romp with husband-killer Julie McGinley, serving life for the murder of Gerry McGinley.

Yet another sacked officer, Caroline Murdoch, earlier this year went to an industrial tribunal claiming unfair dismissal.

The blonde beauty was given the boot after cops raided two properties in Lisburn and recovered drugs.

Letters from the police to prison chiefs later said that she had links with a well-known Mid-Ulster LVF man.

As well as their conduct towards prisoners, the new rules, designed to increase “transparency” and “accountability” in the service, warn staff about divulging secret information.

Last year, authorities launched a probe to discover the source for high-profile Sunday Life exposés of a number of jailhouse scandals.

And any warder planning to write an insider account of life behind bars has been warned that the book must be shelved, until prison chiefs have read and ‘cleared’ it.

Sunday Life

21 August 2005

A PERMANENT memorial is to be erected at the spot where 10 Protestant workmen were cut down in a hail of bullets by IRA killers.

The victims’ group Families Acting for Innocent Relatives says it will unveil the memorial next January to mark the 30th anniversary of the Kingsmills Massacre.

At the moment, a solitary wooden cross and a poppy wreath at the side of the Whitecross to Bessbrook road in south Armagh is all that marks the scene of one of the worst sectarian outrages of the Troubles.

FAIR director, William Frazer says Kingsmills is sadly becoming the “forgotten massacre” of the Troubles to all but the family and friends of the victims.

“This memorial will send out a clear message - we will never forget Kingsmills and we still seek justice for the men who died,” he said.

He said the killings had left a bitter legacy.

“It’s still an open wound as everyone knew the men who were killed.

“The Kingsmills families have not seen justice done. Sadly this has too often been the case in south Armagh. ”

The atrocity was admitted in the name of the South Armagh Republican Action Force, widely accepted as a cover name for the IRA.

It was just before 6pm on Monday, January 6, 1976, when 12 armed men stopped a minibus carrying workmen from a textile factory near the south Armagh village of Kingsmills.

The one Catholic workman on the bus was ordered to leave the scene by the gunmen.

The other workers were then lined up beside the minibus and cut down in a hail of automatic gunfire.

Nine of the victims were from the village of Bessbrook while the minibus driver was from Mount Norris.

Miraculously, one man survived despite being hit 18 times.

Sunday Life

**Yeah, here’s a heartbreaking story…

21 August 2005

TWO east Belfast men were remanded in custody yesterday on extortion charges.

David Alexander Bennett, (29), and Robert Lowey (28), both of Frazer Pass, were accused of claiming to be UVF members.

They were also charged with demanding money with menaces, and with receiving money contrary to the Terrorism Act.

Lowey faced an additional charge of having a pistol and ammunition.

Both men denied all charges. They were remanded in custody until September 16.

Giving evidence to Belfast Magistrates’ Court, a detective constable said the men had been recorded and photographed in an undercover police operation.

During the course of the five-minute hearing, several women in the public gallery were crying and as the pair were led away one woman shouted out: “I love you, Davey.”

Sunday Life

21 August 2005

AN unemployed 25-year-old Co Antrim man appeared in court yesterday on charges linked to a spate of attacks on Catholic-owned pubs and homes.

Mark Samuel Fry, of Brookfield Gardens, Ahoghill, appeared at special sitting of Ballymena Magistrate’s Court wearing a Glasgow Rangers sweatshirt.

He was remanded in custody on four charges of attempted intimidation and four of criminal damage.

The charges relate to incidents when two pubs and two homes had a total of nine windows damaged in the early hours of Friday, in the Rasharkin and Portglenone areas.

Windows were damaged in Se Ogs pub and Mullaghans pub, in Rasharkin, as well as at houses at Gortahar Road, Rasharkin, and Lisnahunchin Road, near Portglenone.

A detective constable said that to each of the eight charges, Fry replied: “No, I did not do it”.

Sunday Life

By Alan Murray
21 August 2005

MO Mowlam was blamed for sabotaging one of the most successful bugging operations ever mounted by the security services against the IRA leadership.

Intelligence chiefs suspected Sinn Fein’s Gerry Kelly twigged key IRA meetings were being bugged after Mo let slip an exact phrase used at one of the Provo meetings. MI5 spooks feared the then Secretary of State had been trying to be “too clever” by showing-off to republicans her knowledge of IRA strategy.

The IRA uncovered a sophisticated under-floor listening device in a house in west Belfast, in 1998, just days after senior republicans met with Mo at Stormont.

Army intelligence chiefs were furious that the bugging device had been found, and analysts spent weeks trying to pinpoint how the IRA had been alerted to its presence.

But, weeks after the discovery was first revealed in Sunday Life in April 1998, senior MI5 and RUC Special Branch officials suspected that Dr Mowlam had inadvertently alerted the Provos to the bug.

They concluded that it was probable that she had directly used a quote from an intelligence briefing sent to Stormont, which was then recognised by north Belfast republican Kelly.

“It could never be ascertained how they tumbled to the presence of the bug, which had been operating successfully for months in a house in west Belfast being used to hold meetings to discuss IRA business,” said a source.

“When the intelligence brief sent to Mo was reviewed, it was concluded that she might have incautiously used a direct quote from it, which triggered Kelly’s suspicions.

“They said nothing, but when they left the meeting with her, they began to probe how she would have heard or learned the phrase or their strategy outline, which she was clearly aware of.

“As a result, from then on, the weekly and any special intelligence briefings sent to Stormont were sanitised.

“Generalities were presented, but phraseology was expunged and specifics were fudged.”

At the time, East Belfast MP Peter Robinson alluded to Mowlam being responsible, when he claimed in Sunday Life that a “senior NIO official had deliberately sabotaged the bugging”.

But intelligence analysts discounted the allegation. They concluded that it was more a case of Mowlam attempting to be “too clever” and showing off to republicans the extent of her knowledge of IRA strategy.

When the story broke in Sunday Life it caused panic at Stormont and within the top echelons of Sinn Fein, because it came just two weeks after the Good Friday Agreement had been signed.

Sunday Life

Let it be - God will be my judge
Death-list pastor tells UVF

By Alan Murray
21 August 2005

A FIREBRAND loyalist preacher last night told UVF chiefs he is ready to “meet the Lord” - after being warned he is on a death list.

Defiant Pastor Kenny McClinton says he fears he has become another “soft target” for UVF killers who have murdered four Protestants in recent weeks.

The Portadown-based preacher, a critic of the UVF, told Sunday Life he fears for his wife and seven-year-old daughter.

But he added: “If I am killed by the UVF, then it is only an opportunity to meet the Lord, and I will accept that opportunity.”

Police have detailed extra patrols around his home but the full-time pastor says his fate will be the “will of the Lord”.

The convicted ex-UDA killer helped secure the destruction of LVF weapons for General John de Chastelain’s arms decommissioning body.

But he says he hasn’t had contact with the LVF for more than two years.

Police advised him on Wednesday that he was one of a number of figures in the mid-Ulster area who were on a ‘hit list’, and the terrorists had him under surveillance.

Pastor McClinton has little doubt the threat is coming from the UVF, although police were not specific.

“I survived an assassination attempt eight years ago, when the UVF didn’t like what I said about them killing Protestants,” he said.

“I suspect they have added my name to a list of soft targets drawn up in mid-Ulster.”

But McClinton says he can’t understand why the UVF would see him as a target in their campaign against the LVF.

“It’s true that I acted as an interlocutor to get some LVF guns off the streets.

“But I haven’t had any contact with the Government for a long time, and I haven’t had any contact on the ground with the LVF for more than two years.

“I’m concentrating on my work for the Lord and, while I’ll make a stand against all these killings, I’m not involved and I’m not going to become involved,” he said yesterday.

“My seven year-old daughter and my wife are with me in the house, and I am concerned that they could be hurt.”

Last Monday’s murder of Michael Green in Sandy Row has heaped further criticism on the UVF.

Influential loyalist figures not connected with the LVF say the UVF’s leadership is being dragged into the mire over the killings of Protestants.

“People are saying it isn’t a feud, it’s a murder campaign against Protestants and they’re angry at the UVF.

“They haven’t hit anyone connected with the LVF in Belfast, yet four Protestants have been murdered and a fifth young man is blinded.

“It’s a potential disaster for the UVF,” one senior loyalist figure warned.

Sunday Life

What the hack?

By John McGurk
21 August 2005

THE NORTHERN Bank has been hit by another cunning criminal cash scam, Sunday Life can exclusively reveal.

Crafty criminals apparently cracked the bank’s computer systems - and nicked money from one of its automatic cashpoint machines.

The undisclosed wad of notes was stolen from a Northern Bank ATM in Belfast, apparently using a stolen card, last week.

But Sunday Life can reveal that the fraudsters mysteriously managed to hoodwink the money from the bank’s coffers - without it being debited from the stolen credit card customers’ account.

The Northern Bank - already victims of the biggest cash robbery in UK history, when £26.5m was stolen from its Belfast headquarters last December - has now been forced to install new computer software to beat the cyber-robbers.

A Northern Bank spokesman said: “We wish to stress that no customer of ours was affected in any way. “It was a fraud committed against the bank, not against any individual.

“What we have done, is install software into our ATM network to prevent this from happening again and make Northern Bank ATMs safe for our customers.”

The spokesman would not comment on the actual method used to steal the money from the machines.

A police spokeswoman confirmed that the Northern Bank had been in contact with them and that “further enquiries are being made”.

The London based APACS - Association for Payment Clearing Services - said that this may be the first instance of this type of a cash card fraud, to be committed in the UK.

A spokesman for the industry watchdog on plastic bank card fraud added:”We will certainly be looking into this. But it definitely can be counteracted. There is no need for the public to be alarmed.”

However, one financial industry source described the new scam as “very serious indeed” and said that all banks in Northern Ireland have now been alerted, as a result.

Added the source: “It is an ongoing battle against these people, who are getting increasingly sophisticated in what they are doing.

“It is becoming increasingly difficult for the banks to combat.

“Astronomical amounts of money are being stolen from banks every year, but banks aren’t being complacent and view the latest scam as being very serious.”

Sunday Life

By Joe Oliver
21 August 2005

A BACKPACK owned by murdered Catholic schoolboy Thomas Devlin helped save his Protestant pal from a similar fate, it emerged yesterday.

For just minutes before Thomas (15) was fatally stabbed, he handed the backpack to his 18-year-old friend.

The two teenagers, along with another 16-year-old boy, were returning from a garage on Belfast’s Antrim Road 11 days ago, when the killers struck without warning.

Heavy metal fan Thomas was stabbed in the back five times during the frenzied attack, close to his Somerton Road home.

His devastated friend, who is preparing to go to university, was struck by an iron bar wielded by one of the two assailants - but the backpack saved him as the killer began hacking at him with the knife.

A friend of the devastated Devlin family said yesterday: “Fortunately, the haversack spared this young lad from serious injury, otherwise there could have been two deaths that night.

“It doesn’t bear thinking about and the only hope is that those responsible will quickly be taken off the streets.”

Dozens of fellow pupils from Belfast Royal Academy attended Thomas’s funeral service, last Wednesday.

Family and friends say fun-loving Thomas had many friends from different religious backgrounds.

“Religion was something I never heard Thomas refer to,” said one friend.

“Indeed, he and his close mates had a shared interests in music and computer games, and religion was just never an issue, never mind a topic.”

Two men and a juvenile were arrested following the murder, but released last Saturday without charge.

One of the men, alleged to have links to the UVF in the Mount Vernon estate, in north Belfast, was re-arrested by police on an unrelated matter following a search connected to the murder.

Police also returned to one of the freed men’s homes, on Tuesday, and removed a number of items, including a mobile phone.

Sunday Life

By Sinead McCavana
21 August 2005

A CO Down taxi driver remains in a stable condition in hospital after being shot early yesterday morning.

It was still unknown last night if the victim had any paramilitary links.

Sunday Life understands he works for Rosehill Cab Co in Newtownards.

The man was shot in his vehicle at Stirling Avenue in the town.

Locals heard up to five shots.

Strangford MLA David McNarry called for an increase in police patrols and appealed to the community not to put up with such violence.

“We have got to think about zero tolerance,” said the UUP man.

“There must also be a police presence 24/7 in every loyalist area, if we’re to stop these shootings.”

The DUP’s Tom Hamilton added: “Newtownards, like the rest of Northern Ireland, doesn’t need this type of thing, it’s utterly unacceptable.”

Police had not confirmed last night if the shooting was linked to the ongoing loyalist feud between the UVF and LVF, which has claimed four lives.

Sinn Féin

Published: 20 August, 2005

Sinn Féin representative for East Belfast Deborah Devenny has this evening said that residents of the Short Strand district are ’sickened and disgusted by a week of attacks on the area by loyalist thugs’.

Speaking this evening Ms Devenny said:

“For this past week, the Short Strand has been under systematic attack by loyalists. This evening the situation has deteriorated further with the Old Firm Soccer game and a loyalist band parade on the Newtonards Road, contributory factors.

“The PSNI have once again demonstrated their unwillingness to deal with loyalist thugs intent upon intimidating the people of this area. The PSNI have absolutely no control over this situation and when challenged responded that they did not have the resources to deal with it. Furthermore, there are three security cameras in the area, which must have recorded events over these past days. It will be interesting to see if they are taken away and examined.

“This community is sickened and disgusted by a week long siege on this district. A barrage of ball-bearings, golf balls, bricks and bottles have rained down upon people and property. The political leadership of unionism and the Orange Order must face down these people. In a week when Sinn Féin launched a dossier outlining over 85 attacks upon nationalists in the summer months, unionist paramilitaries continue to orchestrate and participate in these attacks. Sinn Féin has appealed to unionist politicians who sit on forums and commissions with the leaders of the UVF and UDA to start using their influence to end these attacks.” ENDS

BreakingNews.ie

21/08/2005 - 12:48:02

Detectives investigating the loyalist paramilitary murder of a father-of-three will tomorrow set up vehicle checkpoints in the area where he was gunned down a week ago.

Delivery driver Michael Green, 42, was ambushed as he arrived to open up the furniture store where he worked.

He was shot at least five times by two Ulster Volunteer Force gunmen and is the fourth man to be killed since the organisation’s festering feud with the Loyalist Volunteer Force erupted last month.

Mr Green, from the Ballysillan district of north Belfast, was gunned down outside Gilpins Furniture Store on the loyalist Sandy Row in the south of the city.

He had just opened a side gate and got back on his motorcycle when the killers opened fire.

Police will this morning man checkpoints at Sandy Row and Abingdon Drive in a bid to secure a breakthrough in the inquiry.

A PSNI spokeswoman said: “Police will be stopping traffic and asking to speak to anyone who may have been in the area last Monday, August 15.”

Northern Ireland Office Minister Lord Rooker described the murder as callous and cold-blooded.

As well as the murders, hundreds of UVF men also laid siege to a housing estate in the east of the city in a bid to drive out families associated with the LVF. Police and soldiers stood by during the occupation.

The other three shot dead since the hatred turned into bloodshed on July 1 were Stephen Paul, 28, and Craig McCausland, 20 – both in north Belfast – and Jameson Lockhart, 25, in the east of the city.

BBC

Bishop Patrick Walsh met parishioners in Ahoghill

The Catholic Bishop of Down and Connor has visited parishioners in County Antrim after a number of sectarian attacks in the area.

Bishop Patrick Walsh told parishioners at St Mary’s church in Ahoghill he wanted to show his support and concern after recent attacks in the village.

The church he had chosen to visit has also been targeted - attacked with paint three times in the last month.

Bishop Walsh called on the police to bring the attackers before the courts.

He said officers must do everything possible to protect law abiding citizens.

The bishop also said that the majority of residents in Ahoghill wanted to live together in what he called a genuine community which embraced all.

But he added that it was not enough to simply give support and said everyone must put sincere wishes into actions.

Bishop Walsh also called on elected representatives to engage in constructive dialogue and said there must be a total commitment by all to work for the common good.

Police pledge

Meanwhile, Superintendent Terry Shevlin, the police commander for the Ballymena region, said his officers were working hard to stop the atacks.

“I would like to reassure the public that we are doing all that we can to bring the attacks and intimidation to an end,” Mr Shevlin said.

“I thank those who have already come forward to assist us, and would encourage anyone who has any information regarding any recent act of intimidation in the area to provide us with the evidence that we need to place offenders before the courts.”

The latest attacks in the village came on Monday, when a Catholic church and school were splattered with paint, the same night as an attack on a Catholic couple’s home.

On Friday, an SDLP delegation raised the issue of loyalist violence, including the Ahoghill attacks, with government minister Lord Rooker.