SAOIRSE32

Belfast Telegraph

Ex-loyalist boss in new vow to return

22 April 2006

The Shoukri brothers were today branded Special Branch agents by exiled Johnny Adair as the former loyalist boss vowed to return to Belfast from exile in Scotland. (Andre on right - click to view)

His comments come as speculation mounts that Andre and Ihab Shoukri, who have been accused of disobeying the leadership’s order to cease drug dealing, are to be ousted by the outlawed paramilitary organisation.

And according to Adair, who fled Ulster three years ago after the murder of South East Antrim UDA chief John Gregg, time is running out for the Shoukris as UDA members “can see them for the fakes they are”.

Insisting that UDA attitudes towards him have thawed, making a return to Ulster in the future a very real possibility, he told a daily newspaper: “I have always said one day I would return to Belfast.

“I always saw what happened to me like a large iceberg. Every day, week and month that iceberg has thawed and it is now no more than an ice cube.

“Look at the people who plotted against me, where are they now? Dead or in jail, they have one by one shown their true colours.

“The Shoukri brothers are paying the price, they last three years and now they have been uncovered for the frauds they always were. I always said the Shoukris were Special Branch.”

Adair and his supporters were forced to flee his Shankill power base, firstly to Scotland and then Bolton, after his ‘C Company’ faction shot dead John Gregg.

Former allies in the LVF also disowned him because of the Gregg murder.

However, Adair insisted he will return to Belfast and continued his defiant attack on the Shoukri brothers: “I believe they were groomed by Special Branch to infiltrate the UDA and cause dissent. They had their way for a while but now real loyalists can see them for the fakes they are.

“Andre Shoukri has gambled more than £800,000 of UDA money, that is a disgrace.”

Belfast Telegraph

Alsatian Ben pines by owner’s graveside

By Fiona McIlwaine Biggins and Eimear O’Hagan
newsdesk@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
22 April 2006

An Ulster cemetery has had an unusual mourner visiting a grave over recent weeks - Ulster’s own version of the famous Greyfriars Bobby.

Ben, a 12-year-old Alsatian dog, has been found on a number of occasions “crying” at the grave of his beloved owner, Lily, in Our Lady’s Cemetery in Newtownabbey.

Peter McAtamney explained that his wife Lily and Ben had been inseparable and since she died in February the dog has literally been “wrecked by grief”.

He said his wife was devoted to the dog and now Ben was having problems adjusting to life without her.

“We’ve had him since he was a six weeks. When he was born no one would take him because he was such a big, strong puppy, people thought there was something wrong with him. But we took him and I’m so glad, because he’s been the best dog you could ever wish for.

“Once my wife took a fall in the yard behind the house and he bent his head down and she took hold of his collar, and he helped her up and helped her to the back door.

“She loved him - she used to take him to bed with her. When he came into the bedroom, I got thrown out! She’d even get up in the middle of the night to make him wee snacks. I would tell her she was spoiling him and she would tell me to mind my own business!”

Three days after Mrs Mc Atamney was buried, Ben went missing.

The 70-year-old widower revealed: “Ben got out of his pen and we couldn’t find him. I thought he might have gone to the graveyard and I asked my home help, Maureen McNinch, to have a look. She found him on the grave, he was whimpering and was tearful.

“I think he knew where Lily was buried because at the funeral he saw people coming and going between the house and the cemetery, and he just put two and two together and worked out that’s where she was. He’s a very intelligent dog.”

With Ben continuing to pine for his late owner, Mr McAtamney is keeping a close eye on him.

“He’d go to the grave every day if he was allowed to but I’ve locked the gates now to stop him going because it’s not safe for him to be running around the roads.

“He’s coming round a bit now and he’s getting a lot of love and attention from me which I think is what he needs.”

Sharon Hatt from The Dog’s Trust said: “This truly goes to show that dogs really are man’s best friend. There is no substitute for the companionship found when you own a dog and this highlights that the bond really is so deep.”

The legendary tale of Greyfriars Bobby recalls how the Skye terrier visited his dead master’s grave in Edinburgh every day for 14 years.

Irish Examiner

22/04/06

PLANS for an unpaid, part-time garda reserve force seem ridiculous in a country where fear of criminals is now palpable.

For some reason the country is now breeding criminals who impose no limits on their activities. If lives have to be taken in a robbery, or if people have to be seriously injured, then that is what happens.

This cannot be allowed to continue.

But what do we get by way of protection?

The Government plans to recruit around 900 volunteers into the reserve by September to carry out policing duties in the presence of uniformed gardaí.

This proposal is an ill-conceived half measure that won’t work.

We are told the reserve will be a supporting force and not a replacement for gardaí.

Is this not a cheap, stop-gap way of covering up failures to provide serving gardaí with adequate communications and protective clothing, such as anti-shot jackets worn by most other police forces when dealing with public order situations?

The reserve proposal is all about policing on the cheap.

It would seem that the Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, does not want to pay for recruiting and training the extra gardaí required.

But he should realise before it’s too late that spending money on part-time reservists is a joke.

Cllr Noel Collins
‘St Jude’s’
Midleton
Co Cork

BN.ie

22/04/2006 - 10:58:40

A man appeared before magistrates in the North today on charges connected with an explosives find in Lurgan, Co Armagh earlier this week.

Craigavon Magistrates Court was told that Daire McKenna, 22, from Lurgan Tarry in Lurgan, made no reply when charged with possessing explosives with intent to endanger life, on April 19.

The court was also told that the charge related to the discovery of an explosive substance, an ammonium nitrate based fertiliser and sugar mix.

When the discovery was made at a breaker’s yard on the Antrim Road in Lurgan on Wednesday, it was claimed that the component would have made a 250lb car bomb.

Under questioning from McKenna’s solicitor, Paula Collins, a detective sergeant confirmed that police could not guarantee that when the accused was questioned at Antrim Police Station the consultation rooms were not bugged.

The dispute over the consultation rooms has been taken to Belfast High Court and will be the subject of a judicial review on Monday.

The detective sergeant also confirmed that Miss Collins had advised her client not to comment during the police interview because he was not able to avail himself of effective legal advice because of the concerns that the consultation rooms in the station were bugged.

However, he also said police had advised McKenna fully of his legal rights and the inferences which could be drawn from making no comment.

McKenna was remanded in custody to appear before magistrates in Craigavon next Thursday.

His solicitor said he could make a bail application over the coming days in the High Court.

BBC

Lord Attenborough and Pete Postlethwaite on location

It is not every day you get three Academy Award winners in the same street, but it is all the more noteworthy when that street is a terrace row in north Belfast.

A movie about a wartime American airman’s lost ring has brought the Hollywood camera crews to Fortwilliam.

And some lucky residents have found the making of the film, Closing The Ring, an enriching experience in more ways than one.

Local children taking part as extras are earning £55 a day.

The friendly invasion, headed by Oscar winner Lord Attenborough, has seen Fortwilliam Parade become 1940s Pound Street, at least for the duration of filming.

Dickie, as he is affectionately known to his cast, is directing the romantic drama inspired by a real-life wartime tragedy on the Cavehill above Fortwilliam.

Fortwilliam Parade temporarily becomes Pound Street

Closing the Ring is said to be costing more than £11m and the star is another Oscar winner, Hollywood legend Shirley MacLaine.

The drama begins in 1942 when an American B-17 bomber crashed into the Cavehill while returning to its Northern Ireland base.

The story centres on a gunner in the plane’s dying wish to have a gold ring returned to his girlfriend in America.

The film is set in Belfast and North Carolina.

Ms MacLaine plays the gunner’s lover, Ethel, to whom the ring is returned 50 years later.

Lord Attenborough has assembled a top notch cast.

The film concerns a B-17 gunner’s dying wish

As well as Shirley MacLaine, the list includes Pete Postlethwaite, Christopher Plummer, Brenda Fricker and Mischa Barton.

Residents watched fascinated as a derelict pharmacy was tranformed into an old-fashioned corner shop.

Others, recruited as extras, played a more active role.

One family returned from holiday to find “blood-stained soldiers” outside their front door.

Far from being put out by the hustle and bustle of film-making, residents say they are enjoying themselves.

“Everybody is just happy because you’re getting a film on your doorstep,” said one.

One of the children, asked what she was going to do with her £55, said: “I’m getting a bike.”

Another said she would buy a DVD player - perhaps to watch Closing the Ring?

BBC ON THIS DAY

21 April 1994

One of the Guildford Four, Paul Hill, has won his appeal against a conviction for an IRA murder in Northern Ireland.

Paul Hill’s conviction for pub bombings was quashed in 1989

The Appeal Court in Belfast ruled his conviction for the 1974 murder of former soldier Brian Shaw was unsafe.

Mr Hill confessed to the murder of Mr Shaw to detectives from the Royal Ulster Constabulary while being held at Guildford police station over two pub bombings in which 21 people died.

But the three appeal court judges ruled his confession was obtained improperly.

They said it may have been induced by a Surrey police officer pointing a gun at him.

But they also indicated they believed many of Mr Hill’s allegations of ill-treatment were untrue.

Five years ago the behaviour of Surrey police officers also led to Paul Hill and three others being cleared of the Guildford and Woolwich pub bombings.

The quashing of the conviction for Brian Shaw’s murder means Mr Hill may now receive up to half a million pounds in compensation for the years he spent in jail.

Among those in court with Mr Hill were his wife Courtney, daughter of the late Robert Kennedy and his mother-in-law, Ethel Kennedy.

“I’ve been in limbo for a long time. I didn’t wait for 17 years to be told I was innocent of this, I always knew I was innocent of this,” Mr Hill told reporters after the judgement.

Events in Guildford police station had led to a “travesty of justice” for both Mr Shaw and the bombing victims and those wrongfully imprisoned, Mr Hill added.

Brian Shaw’s widow, Maureen Hall, who was also in court said her family was disappointed by the verdict.

She said: “We have to live with this decision, but we do not have to agree with it. Brian Shaw was the real innocent victim in this case.'’

In Context

In July 1994 a report into the case of the Guildford Four by former judge Sir John May said the miscarriage of justice was due to “individual failings” and not weaknesses in the system.

In July 2000 UK Prime Minister Tony Blair became the first senior politician to apologise to the Guildford Four.

In a letter, sent to Paul Hill’s wife, Mr Blair said: “There were miscarriages of justice in your husband’s case, and the cases of those convicted with him. I am very sorry indeed that this should have happened.”

The case of the Guildford Four was one of several high-profile cases of miscarriage of justice in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

On 9 February 2005 Prime Minister Tony Blair issued a public apology to the Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven for the miscarriages of justice they had suffered.

He said: “I am very sorry that they were subject to such an ordeal and such an injustice.

“They deserve to be completely and publicly exonerated.”

Sinn Féin

Published: 21 April, 2006

Sinn Féin Assembly member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone Thomas O‚Reilly has expressed his concern at the conditions being experienced by those prisoners being held in the segregated wing in Maghaberry. Mr O’Reilly’s remarks come after he was contacted by the families of some of those currently being held on the republican wing in the prison.

Mr O’Reilly said:

“In August 2003 Sinn Féin made it clear to the British government that the practice of forced integration which they were attempting to operate within Maghaberry was flawed and doomed to failure. Shortly after this the British government did introduce a segregated section within Maghaberry to house republican prisoners in the face of opposition from the Prison Officers Association.

“Unfortunately it appears that the regime being imposed on those being held in the segregated wing differs greatly from the other parts of the prison. I have been contacted by a number of families of those being held in Maghaberry concerned about the repressive nature of the regime in operation in the segregated wing and problems arising on visits especially with the use of a sniffer dog which has led to a number of visits being cancelled as they were about to commence.

“I have been given numerous accounts of persistent strip searching, petty regulations and difficulties accessing adequate education facilities. There is a firm belief that the men being held there are pawns in a wider battle between the prison administration, the NIO and the Prison Officers Association, the latter of which certainly resists prisoners held in segregated conditions being given equal and fair treatment.

“There must be a realisation that all prisoners have the right to be treated in a humane fashion regardless of their political or religious affiliation and that conflict within the prison system is in nobody’s interest.”ENDS

BN.ie

21/04/2006 - 20:49:45

The Garda Commissioner has tonight apologised to the Northern Chief Constable regarding the Denis Donaldson murder investigation.

Detectives had travelled north to interview journalists but failed to inform police there.

A statement issued by the Garda Síochana tonight says due to an oversight it had been assumed advance notice of the visit was given to the PSNI.

It has been confirmed Commissioner Conroy has explained the position to Hugh Orde and apologised.

Former Republican Denis Donaldson was murdered in Glenties, county Donegal after admitting to being a British spy.