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BBC

North Belfast loyalist William “Mo” Courtney has been acquitted of murdering a former associate of UDA leader Johnny Adair.

Willliam “Mo” Courtney was acquitted of murder

Belfast Crown Court judge Mr Justice McLaughlin said he could not convict him of the 2003 murder of Alan “Bucky” McCullough or UFF and UDA membership.

He said there was “inherent weakness” in the evidence given by the McCullough family and of witness A.

Mr Courtney, of Fernhill Heights, was tried under the Diplock no-jury system.

“I could not properly convict the accused of the murder of Alan McCullough,” the judge said.

Mr Justice McLaughlin added: “In addition the prosecution case is highly deficient in establishing that the defendant was part of a common design to kill the deceased.”

However, following recent legislation the prosecution have a right to appeal the judge’s decision.

The body of Alan McCullough was found in a shallow grave

Following the acquittal of the 43-year-old, prosecuting QC Geoffrey Millar asked for the case to be adjourned to Thursday in order to give him time to consult with the Director of the Public Prosecution Service.

Describing the adjournment application as “entirely appropriate”, Mr Justice McLaughlin granted the application as “it’s not something that should be decided in a matter of minutes”.

The body of Mr McCullough, 21, was found in a shallow grave on the outskirts of north Belfast. He had been shot.

An earlier hearing had been told that Mr McCullough had been a member of the so-called “C company” of the UDA - headed by Adair.

“C company” had been expelled from the UDA in 2002, and a number of its members, including the victim, had been ordered out of Northern Ireland by UDA leaders.

Mr McCullough returned to Northern Ireland in April 2003 and his body was found on 5 June.

Derry Journal

28 November 2006

The family of a Castlederg man shot dead by Michael Stone say they now want the notorious loyalist killer “locked up for life” following Friday’s incident at Stormont.
Catholic breadman Dermot Hackett was shot dead by Stone at the wheel of while on his rounds in 1987. At the time it was claimed he had republican paramilitary links, but this has always been strenuously denied by his family.
Last year Stone met with Mr. Hackett’s widow, Sylvia for the controversial BBC series ‘Facing the Truth’.
Following Friday’s security breach, Mrs. Hackett, who lives in Strabane, said Stone had now “shown his true colours”.
“He said he had finished with guns and violence but look at him now.
“When he met us he came in with a walking stick. I didn’t see any walking stick up at Stormont.”
Mr. Hackett’s brother Rodney added that he believed the 51-years-old had “become unhinged”.
“I would say the whole thing has just got on top of him now. This is a really stupid action, what was he going to gain from it?
“He’s a spent force now but when he came out of prison he had a high profile. Maybe this is his natural reaction to losing his profile and he wanted into the limelight again.”

BBC

Television film of the Michael Stone incident at Stormont must be handed over to the police, a judge has ruled.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland applied for an order at Belfast Recorder’s Court on Tuesday compelling the BBC, UTV and RTE to hand over film.

A police officer said he also wanted footage in a BBC camera left running after it was abandoned in Parliament Buildings last Friday.

The judge granted the order which was sought under the Terrorism Act.

Judge Tom Burgess said he was satisfied that various film clips would be of value in the public interest. He said the order included the film in the abandoned camera which was recovered by bomb disposal experts as they checked out the building.

It was put in a sealed bag and handed over to police but has not been seen by anyone.

BBC
The Ulster Defence Association has denied having any prior knowledge about Michael Stone’s attack at Stormont.

The loyalist paramilitary group refuted claims that it sent out teams to intercept or shoot Stone before the security alert on Friday.

The UDA denies prior knowledge about Michael Stone’s attack

Police have ended their search of a house on the outskirts of east Belfast in connection with the incident.

They said the search at a bungalow on Grahamsbridge Road, Dundonald, was part of an investigation into serious crime.

It is understood that the house belongs to a former girlfriend of the loyalist killer.

There were no arrests.

Stone, 51, faces a total of five charges of attempted murder following a major security incident at Stormont on Friday during an assembly sitting.

He was also charged with possession of articles for terrorist purposes and possession of explosives.

Prison

He was returned to jail after his early release from jail under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement was suspended.

Stone was sentenced to almost 700 years in jail for six murders, three of which were committed during a lone gun and grenade attack on an IRA funeral in Belfast in 1988.

He was released in 2000 after serving 12 years in prison.

Newspaper reports claimed the UDA sent out four teams to intercept and, if necessary, shoot Michael Stone before the attack at Stormont.

However, the paramilitary group’s leadership issued a statement on Monday describing the reports as “completely untrue.”

This was reiterated by Frankie Gallagher of the UDA’s political wing, the Ulster Political Research Group.

“The Ulster Defence Association has had absolutely no prior knowledge of what Michael was doing,” he said.

“That is becoming increasingly clear as time shows that he acted alone.”

BBC

A Sinn Fein politician has taken an official role on a policing board in the Irish Republic for the first time.

Sinn Fein has taken a place on a policing board in the Irish Republic

Dublin councillor Larry O’Toole has become vice-chair of the city’s joint policing committee.

However, he said his appointment should not be taken as an indication of the party’s position on the PSNI.

Meanwhile, a public meeting in west Belfast on Monday night to debate the policing issue was largely opposed to republicans supporting it.

It was attended by some Sinn Fein members and two leading figures from the 32 County Sovereignty committee, a group which has links with the Real IRA.

Sinn Fein’s policing spokesman Gerry Kelly said he thought it was a good debate.

“We are dealing with real people here, we are dealing with real issues and the people who spoke, you have to be clear about it - it wasn’t just the issue of policing - they were absolutely against the Sinn Fein strategy in its entirety,” he said.

Belfast Telegraph

Loyalist’s assault of Stormont was more about the killer’s ego than protesting against power-sharing.

Brian Rowan reports
27 November 2006

You might wonder why Michael Stone didn’t attack the Stormont building and the new politics of this place long before last Friday.

That is, if you accept what he claims as his motivation for all that happened and didn’t happen at Parliament Buildings those few days ago.

I don’t.

If you were daft enough, he’d have you believe that this had something to do with power sharing and a political sell-out; something to do with Paisley and the Provos, and that he, Stone, the “soldier” from the “war” that’s over, was out to deliver a last loyalist message of “No surrender”.

What absolute nonsense.

What about Stormont and the politics of this place when David Trimble was First Minister and unionists, nationalists and republicans - including Martin McGuinness - were part of the same Executive?

Where was Michael Stone then? Where were his pipe bombs and all of the rest of his paramilitary bits and pieces?

The answer is, they were nowhere to be seen.

I think I know why.

Last Friday, and the Stone show, had nothing to do with power sharing or a sell-out - nothing whatsoever.

Michael Stone long ago accepted Sinn Fein’s mandate and its place in the political process. He told me so - told me within weeks of the Good Friday Agreement; told me and then tried not to tell me.

After a television interview, he and other loyalists asked for the tape.

I spoke to him in that gap between the Good Friday Agreement and the referendum of 1998 - interviewed him while he was out on parole and just hours after loyalists had given him a standing ovation inside the Ulster Hall.

They are not celebrating him any longer - not after his show on Friday last.

That interview back in 1998 was quite controversial - not so much because of what Stone had to say, but when he said it.

It was a timing thing.

The people had not yet endorsed the Agreement, and one of its most controversial aspects related to the early release of prisoners - something from which Stone and hundreds of loyalists and republicans would later benefit.

Last Friday at Stormont one of those early release licences was torn up in public - destroyed in that one-man show at the entrance to Parliament Buildings.

Stone must have known the consequences of his actions. Did he want to go back to jail? Is that where he believes he will be safe?

Some will tell you that the answer to both those questions is yes.

Back in May 1998, on the morning after the Ulster Hall rally, the Northern Ireland Office told the then Ulster Democratic Party to ensure that Stone did no media interviews.

This issue of prisoners and their release was damaging the wider political agreement, and the Government feared this could feed the “No” vote in the now imminent referendum.

The call to the UDP was too late. Stone had just finished an interview with me to be broadcast later that day on BBC news outlets.

In the company of Stone and the UDA brigadier Jim Gray - later murdered in 2005 - the UDP’s then prisoners spokesman John White asked me to give them the tape.

I refused. A fax signed by Stone was then sent to the BBC withdrawing permission for the interview to be used, and senior leaders in the UDP contacted BBC editors.

It was serious stuff. There was talk that the Prime Minister Tony Blair had hit the roof when he’d seen the television pictures of Stone in the Ulster Hall.

The interview was broadcast - an interview in which Stone refused to apologise for the murders he had committed.

He acknowledged “the hurt” he had caused, but “within the context of being a volunteer in a war”, he would not apologise.

In that interview, more than eight years ago, Stone said the following about Sinn Fein’s most senior leaders:

“Adams and McGuinness have brought the republican death squads on, seemingly making the transition into a democracy, and, if they believe in that democracy, then majority rules. They’ve a political mandate, I accept that, and they should have their place at the talks.”

The same Michael Stone, who in 2006 is shouting about no power-sharing with the “Shinners” and who is accusing Ian Paisley of a sell-out, spoke those words - words that take you closer to the truth of what last Friday was really about.

Forget about all of that shouting and ranting about power sharing, about Paisley and the Provos and about the new politics of this place.

What happened at Parliament Buildings last Friday - after Stone stepped out of a taxi - was a play for publicity, a desperate and dangerous performance by a man whose cause is fame and whose fear is that he might become irrelevant.

Friday was about Michael Stone’s ego.

He plays this silly game with the exiled loyalist Johnny Adair - a game of gimmicks and stunts. It is about the two of them staying in the news - about them sounding and seeming important within loyalism and within Northern Ireland.

They aren’t. Not any more. It’s all nonsense.

These days, Adair sneaks in and then runs out of Northern Ireland, because, for all his talk, to stay would mean he would end up dead.

Stone - after his performance at Parliament Buildings - is back in prison and will stay there for a considerable period of time.

His ego has been sent to jail.

Will it matter to anyone within loyalism? No it won’t.

Because for all they were to the UDA in the war of yesterday, Stone and Adair are nothing in the peace of today.

Belfast Telegraph

By Noel McAdam, Political Correspondent
27 November 2006

The political deadlock over policing remained today as the DUP attacked Sinn Fein’s insistence that it cannot sign up to the PSNI while being denied an operational role.

Still recovering from the party’s wobble during Friday’s dramatic events at Stormont, the DUP attempted to maintain the focus on the policing issue.

It came as Secretary of State Peter Hain said the remarks made by Deputy leader Peter Robinson, party secretary Nigel Dodds and the Rev William McCrea - that the devolution of policing might not happen for at least a “political lifetime” - were unhelpful.

It emerged today, however, that the statement issued by 12 senior party members, including four MPs, on Friday, had initially been drawn up as a point of order for chairman Lord Morrow.

But after the attack by Michael Stone suspended Assembly proceedings, Lord Morrow did not get the opportunity to raise it during the debate and, with the party’s press office closed, it was decided to release it.

“It was a mess,” a senior party member conceded today, “but it was the appearance of a mess rather than a real mess and has only served as a distraction.”

Meanwhile, the Sinn Fein leadership made it clear it is prepared to call its special ard fheis on policing in January, shortly before the writ of the new ‘transitional’ Assembly runs out - but only if a timetable for the devolution of policing and justice is agreed.

Mr Dodds said: “That is spurious nonsense. (Sinn Fein) is saying it will only support policing when it can see itself getting control or influence over the police in a devolved setting.

“That is totally unreasonable.

“Support for the PSNI, the rule of law and the courts must happen as part of the commitment to peaceful and democratic means, not as some kind of political deal with Sinn Fein.

“Sinn Fein, alone of the political parties, makes it a precondition of even beginning the process leading to eventual support for the police that they must have the early prospect of getting leverage over the running of the police,” the North Belfast MP added.