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Daily Ireland

Speculation north Belfast ‘brigadier’ is to be stood down by leadership as woman is taken into witness protection programme in wake of raids and arrests

Ciarán Barnes

Click to view - Shoukri brothers (Andre on right)

The Ulster Defence Association is preparing to “stand down” Andre Shoukri as its boss in north Belfast following his arrest yesterday.
Detectives from the PSNI’s organised crime squad arrested the 27-year-old, his elder brother Ihab Shoukri, a female relative, and two other men in a series of early morning raids.
The arrests came after a woman approached the PSNI with information on illegal money making rackets being run by the north Belfast UDA.
She is now living in England under the police’s witness protection programme.
Ye Olde Strathmore Inn on the city’s Cavehill Road, which was formerly known as Bonaparte’s bar, was also visited by detectives.
Last June a PSNI inspector said the premises were “under the control of a paramilitary organisation”. The comments were made during a Belfast city council entertainments license application hearing by its then owner, Mandy Hillman.
Loyalist sources told Daily Ireland yesterday that Andre Shoukri’s arrest signalled the end of his spell in charge of the north Belfast UDA.
The UDA is planning to replace him with a well-spoken loyalist who is heavily involved with interface work.
“Andre is finished, there will be no coming back after this,” said one well-placed source.
“Having the PSNI take him off the streets saves us from doing it ourselves.”
In recent months the UDA has been trying to clean up its gangster image and portray itself as a more political organisation. In April, the UDA stood down its flamboyant east Belfast boss Jim Gray, before murdering him .
Andre Shoukri is viewed by many within the UDA as being in the same mould as Gray. He has powerful enemies within the organisation including its south Belfast leader Jackie McDonald.
McDonald and Shoukri’s UDA factions clashed during the summer when a number of bars that their supporters drink in were paint-bombed.
Last week Andre Shoukri ordered convicted UDA blackmailer Thomas Potts to begin a poison pen campaign against McDonald.
Potts sent anonymous letters to newspapers and senior loyalists in Belfast accusing McDonald of shaming the UDA. McDonald supporters hit back, initiating a smear campaign against Shoukri.
Since joining the UDA in the mid-1990s, Shoukri has been in regular trouble with the law. In 1996 he was jailed for his involvement in the death of Dubliner Gareth Parker who was run over by a car after being punched by Shoukri. The loyalist was back in court in 1998, when he was jailed for attempting to smuggle cigarettes. Two years later he was jailed again for his part in a blackmail plot against a Catholic businessman.
During the 2002 UDA feud, Shoukri was arrested with a gun in his car.
He was initially jailed for six years but the conviction was overturned on appeal.