SAOIRSE32

Sunday Times

Enda Leahy
December 03, 2006

SEVERAL people who witnessed the IRA murder of two RUC officers in 1989 have refused to give evidence to a private inquiry, allegedly because of intimidation.

A source close to the tribunal said that at least four eyewitnesses to the killings are not co-operating. They were taken from their cars at an IRA checkpoint and forced to lie down at the side of the road while the RUC officers were shot.

“Four or five of them have refused to speak to the inquiry,” said the source. “They have been identified and approached, but it looks like they won’t give evidence. It seems there has been intimidation.”

Judge Peter Smithwick has been appointed by the Oireachtas to investigate allegations that gardai colluded in the murders of Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan. They were the two most senior RUC officers to die during the Troubles.

Smithwick has identified up to 300 witnesses who will be asked to attend public hearings expected to last six months next year. Some of the witnesses appear to have been approached by either the IRA or British authorities in an attempt to prevent or control their evidence.

Some 30 witnesses are expected to testify about claims that the IRA tapped the telephone of a Dundalk garda station. It is a claim sources say is looking increasingly unbelievable.

Breen and Buchanan were shot dead on March 20, 1989, at an IRA checkpoint in south Armagh. They were returning from a meeting in Dundalk garda station. They had asked for garda co-operation in an operation against Thomas “Slab” Murphy, the IRA chief of staff. It has been claimed at least one garda informer told the IRA about the meeting three days beforehand.

Breen, who was recently accused by a former RUC colleague of having colluded with loyalist terrorist groups, was the RUC commander for Armagh and Down. Buchanan was responsible for liaison between the RUC and the gardai.

Willie Frazer of Families Acting for Innocent Relatives, a group that investigates IRA murders, said Sinn Fein should encourage witnesses to attend. “Here’s a chance to give some credibility to their claims on policing,” he said.

Frazer, who has already given evidence, claims former police officers have been told to speak to the Northern Ireland Office before they respond to Smithwick.

“No threats have been made, but the Official Secrets Act is being mentioned,” he said. “Why is the NIO worried?”

A tribunal source said there is concern that former RUC and British army officers could face prosecution under the Official Secrets Act. “Anyone who gives evidence to the tribunal south of the border does not face prosecution arising from their evidence, but that does not apply in Britain,” the source said. “And the tribunal has no powers to compel witnesses outside the jurisdiction to appear.”

The British government has given no guarantee that former employees will not be prosecuted if they speak to Smithwick. Kevin Fulton, a former British spy in the IRA, has claimed that a garda tipped off the IRA about the RUC officers’ trip south.

Eoin Corrigan, a former Special Branch sergeant in Dundalk, was named under privilege in the House of Commons by Jeffrey Donaldson, a Democratic Unionist party MP, as the garda whose tip-off led to the killings. Corrigan has denied the claim.

Freddie Scappaticci, the former head of the IRA’s internal investigations unit, is also due to be called. Frazer has claimed Scappaticci was in contact with a Dundalk garda informer who destroyed evidence on IRA suspects and facilitated lengthy interrogations in the border area.

“One of the main men was in the IRA nutting squad, another is a garda, and you’re dealing with Slab Murphy and his men,” said Frazer. “Heaven only knows who or what else is involved.”

NEWSHOUND

By Suzanne Breen
Sunday Tribune
December 3, 2006

The son of murdered INLA chief-of-staff, Dominic McGlinchey, has been told by police that he is under threat from republican paramilitaries.

Republican sources told the Sunday Tribune that the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) visited Dominic og McGlinchey in south Derry and told him of the threat last week.

McGlinchey was, until recently, a strong Sinn Féin supporter. Sources said he was instrumental in organising meetings of republicans in south Derry who believe Sinn Féin shouldn’t sign up to policing.

The Provisionals are facing huge problems in South Derry. In the summer, local IRA units broke away from the organisation because of disillusionment with the leadership. It is the most serious division in republican ranks since the split which led to the Real IRA’s formation in 1997.

The Provisionals say disgruntled members from other areas, including Belfast, are linking up with the South Derry men and attempting to form “another army”. They are claiming this represents a serious threat to the authority of their leadership.

Last week, around 250 people attended an anti-Agreement republican meeting on policing in west Belfast. Sinn Féin representative, Declan Kearney, who was among the speakers, met substantial opposition from the audience when he voiced Sinn Féin policy.

Republican sources told the Sunday Tribune that the Provisional IRA had visited some former supporters and told them “these meetings must be knocked on the head”.

Meanwhile, a veteran Co Antrim republican has resigned from the party over policing. Laurence O’Neill from Glenravel told the Sunday Tribune that his “outspoken criticism of Sinn Féin policy on policing” meant he could no longer remain in the party.

“I’m a lifelong republican but I firmly believe no republican can ever sign up to policing and that has led to a fall-out with former friends,” he said. O’Neill was sentenced to 15 years for weapons’ possession in the early 1970s.

He is know as a prolific fund-raiser and is said to have already raised £10,000 for Sinn Féin’s next election campaign. Sources said a Sinn Féin representative had visited O’Neill, reprimanding him for attending a meeting in Toome. He had also been told not to attend last week’s meeting on policing in west Belfast.

Meanwhile, a prominent west Belfast republican has voiced strong opposition to the Sinn Féin leadership and disclosed that he has resigned from the Provisional movement.

Tony Catney, a former ard comhairle member and senior electoral strategist, ran the Sinn Féin office in Brussels in the mid-90s and is also an ex-head of the POW department. In a letter in yesterday’s (Saturday) Irish News, Catney rejected allegations being circulated by senior Sinn Féin members that he had formed a new military organisation.

He said: “I was a member of the republican movement for 37 years and resigned last year as a result of the lack of internal debate on matters of policy and strategy and the manner in which membership were expected to blindly follow a leadership-led policy without question or dissent.”

Catney opposes supporting the PSNI and the St Andrew’s Agreement and has been discussing these issues with other republicans.

________________

This article appeared in the December 3, 2006 edition of the Sunday Tribune.

Sunday Times

John Burns
December 03, 2006

THERE was no secret ceasefire deal between the Real IRA and the Irish government following the Omagh bombing in 1998, an independent inquiry has found.

The Nally report, which was published last week, has concluded that there is no basis for persistent allegations that charges were dropped against seven suspects in return for a ceasefire in September 1998, one month after the Omagh atrocity which killed 28 people, including nine children.

The Nally inquiry was set up four years ago after allegations by John White, a garda, were given credence by Nuala O’Loan, the police ombudsman in Northern Ireland.

Among White’s claims was that charges of handling stolen vehicles, first laid against seven men at Carrickmacross district court in the aftermath of the Omagh bombing, were withdrawn as part of a deal to secure a Real IRA ceasefire.

White said Martin Mansergh, Bertie Ahern’s Northern Ireland adviser who acted as an intermediary in the lead-up to the Provisional IRA’s ceasefire in 1994, had met with representatives of the Real IRA after Omagh. “I believe that all these charges were dropped as a result of the meetings,” White said.

The Nally inquiry questioned senior gardai, RUC officers, officials in the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and White himself about the claims.

Kevin Carty, an assistant garda commissioner, said there was never “any attempt to interfere or influence any aspect” of the garda’s Omagh investigation “by anybody, including politicians or any government minister. To suggest otherwise is totally false”.

White says a Real IRA member told him he had been guaranteed immunity as a result of the “deal”. But Carty and another garda told the Nally inquiry that they had searched the terrorist suspect’s home, yard and sheds in late August 1998 and found no trace of explosives, and no other evidence on which to base a prosecution.

Several hundred cars were examined, and none was found to be stolen.

The suspect was himself arrested in September 1998 and held for 72 hours, but as he made no admission and there was no evidence, he “had to be released without charge”. His tax affairs were also found to be in order by the Criminal Assets Bureau.

Gardai say the Real IRA’s announcement of a ceasefire one month after Omagh was an effort “to buy time and reorganise following arrests and searches”.

After constant speculation, Ahern denied in 2002 that any deal was done between his officials and the Real IRA.

Guardian

Henry McDonald, Ireland editor
Sunday December 3, 2006
The Observer

Evidence has emerged this weekend that reveals the extent of the planning loyalist murderer Michael Stone put into his attack on Stormont last month.

The Observer has seen a note Stone sent to several photographers, with a picture of himself and former Ulster Defence Association chief Andy Tyrie a fortnight before his botched attack. The photograph, taken in 2000 just after he was freed from the Maze, was posted two weeks ago. In a note attached, the UDA assassin wrote: ‘PS A few snaps for your files as I may be away back to the cells for a while.’ Stone is currently on remand facing charges for trying to kill Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness in the Stormont attack.

Detectives have told The Observer that Stone, 51, met members of the rebel UDA south-east Antrim Brigade on 22 November and asked them for a gun. He held talks with UDA commanders alienated from the organisation at a bar in Carrickfergus, but his request was refused. ‘Stone asked for a real weapon but he was told no. The UDA didn’t want to know,’ said one source.

The Observer can also reveal that Stone took a taxi to Stormont on 24 November and avoided security inside the estate by using a long route away from the main road up to the parliament building. The pathway is often used by senior PSNI commanders as a jogging route.

Stone, who has recently made a string of confessions to crimes his UDA comrades claim he never committed, stated recently that he believes he is going back to jail. Prior to his televised assault on the Northern Ireland Assembly building he was under PSNI investigation. The Observer has learnt that Stone was to have been arrested within days of his Stormont sortie.

In a letter to the Belfast Telegraph, dated 24 November, Stone confessed that he intended to assassinate Adams and McGuinness at Stormont. He described himself as a ‘freelance, dissident loyalist paramilitary’ and declared: ‘On receiving this correspondence, I… will be in one of two positions. One I will be in custody… [or] two, that I am deceased.’

Guardian

Henry McDonald, Ireland editor
Sunday December 3, 2006
The Observer

Allowing Republicans to give evidence to detectives that will convict Robert McCartney’s killers should be Sinn Fein’s litmus test on policing, his sisters said last night.

In a statement to The Observer, Catherine McCartney said the party must instruct its members who witnessed the fatal assault on their brother to finally speak to the PSNI about the killing. ‘That is the only way that Sinn Fein can prove they have genuinely changed their stance on policing,’ she said.

Robert McCartney was savagely beaten before being stabbed repeatedly, following an attack by alleged IRA members in Magennis’s Bar in central Belfast nearly two years ago.

His sisters launched a worldwide campaign to bring his killers to justice. They claimed the local IRA took part in and then covered up the murder of their brother and the attempted murder of the friend he died defending, Brendan Devine. Seventy-two people, including several members of Sinn Fein, were in the bar when the attack took place on 30 January 2005. Only one man has been charged in connection with Robert’s death.

‘We would see what happens about Robert’s case as a litmus test for Sinn Fein,’ said McCartney. ‘There is no point signing up to policing as part of the St Andrews Agreement, sitting on the policing board but doing nothing to encourage your own members to co-operate with the police, especially in a murder investigation.

‘After the murder the IRA destroyed all the forensic evidence. They wiped down the bar and got rid of all the knives and weapons that had been used in the attack. They told everyone to shut their mouths.

‘The police have told us repeatedly that the only real evidence available is eye-witnesses and they have been few and far between. If the Sinn Fein leadership now allows its members to come forward and give evidence, then it will remove any question marks over Sinn Fein’s commitment to policing.’

Policing remains the key issue dominating the Northern Ireland peace process. Ian Paisley and his Democratic Unionist Party will not share power with Sinn Fein in a restored devolved government until republicans pledge an oath supporting the PSNI and the rule of law. Sinn Fein cannot do so until the party holds a special delegate conference to ratify its support for new policing structures in Northern Ireland. Irish government sources last night admitted that their British counterparts might cancel Northern Ireland Assembly elections scheduled for early March if it becomes clear Sinn Fein is unable to stage its conference on policing before then.

Later this week Paisley and DUP North Belfast MP Nigel Dodds will hold talks in Downing Street with the Prime Minister. Dodds’s presence on the delegation is significant because he is known to be a deal sceptic and has publicly stated that he did not envisage policing powers being devolved to an assembly in his lifetime. Transferring policing and judicial powers from London to Belfast has been a key Sinn Fein demand in the negotiations.

Sunday Life

By Ciaran McGuigan
03 December 2006

A loyalist terrorist-turned-born-again Christian was last night challenged to apologise for a shooting incident he was alleged to have been involved in.

Former loyalist jailbird Paul ‘Curly’ Winter told how he was ’saved’ in a recently published book - Rough Diamonds (below).

However, another leading mid Ulster loyalist challenged Winter - a one-time associate of murdered LVF leader Billy Wright - to “come clean” about an incident in which two gunmen tried to shoot him at his home almost a decade ago.

Prominent loyalist Barrie Bradbury believes that Winter was involved the incident in December 1997, when he and his partner and son had a narrow escape when gunmen burst into the house.

The gunmen - believed to be from the LVF - fired shots through a bedroom door as Bradbury held the door shut and called 999.

After reading Winter’s soft focus description of his life of crime and his religious conversion, Bradbury wrote to the book’s publishers, Ambassador Productions, demanding a face-to-face meeting with the man he believes tried to shoot him.

“I do not think Mr Winter would have the courage to face me and apologise,” he told Sunday Life.

“If he’s a Christian, then why can’t he come to my door and apologise to me and my partner and my son, who was just 14 at the time.

“Maybe he is one of those people who makes out that he has turned out good-living, but has never repented on anything?”

Bradbury once caused outrage by selling sick sectarian T-shirts featuring Fred Flintstone which declared:, “Any Fenian will do”.

He added :”Don’t think that I haven’t done things in the past that I have regretted and need to apologise for, such as that T-shirt.

“But at least I am man enough to admit that that was wrong.”

When we contacted Winter he refused to discuss Bradbury’s challenge and the shooting incident.

“Who gave you this number? It’s all lies,” he raged.

Sunday Life

By Ciaran McGuigan
03 December 2006

The Government could be set for a U-turn over its decision to refuse to grant protection to an Ulster journalist under threat from dissident republicans.

Sunday Life understands that Secretary of State Peter Hain has written to the National Union of Journalists confirming that the NIO is to review its earlier decision to refuse to allow a Sunday World journalist onto the Key Persons Protection Scheme (KPPS).

Security Minister Paul Goggins had previously written to the journalist stating that they did not “occupy a wider public role which is contributing to the role of the scheme”.

That decision has been described by NUJ Irish Secretary Seamus Dooley as “baffling”.

Said Mr Dooley: “Sadly, we have learnt from experience that there are times when journalists are targeted and are deserving of special protection.

“The employer is of course exercising a duty of care, but the State also has a responsibility.”

Sunday World journalists have previously been targeted by both republican and loyalist paramilitaries.

Just over five years ago, the LVF gunned down investigative reporter Martin O’Hagan in Lurgan as he walked home from a night out with his wife.

No one has been charged in connection with Martin’s murder.

The paper’s former Northern Editor, Jim Campbell, was also shot and severely wounded by the UVF in 1983.

The journalist at the centre of the present storm has been subject to a number of threats from republicans and loyalists in recent months.

Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde has described the level of the current threat as “substantial”.

Sunday Life

By Ciaran McGuigan
03 December 2006

Convicted UDA blackmailer Eddie Sayers has been busted again - this time by tax inspectors.

The hardman extortionist has been declared bankrupt by the High Court after failing to pay his overdue tax.

Sayers, who had been trading as the Brooklands Erne Hotel in Ballinamallard, was subject of a petition lodged with the court by the Revenue & Customs in August.

Last month their application for a bankruptcy order against the dodgy businessman was granted.

Sayers - father of glamorous ex-Miss Northern Ireland Diana Sayers - was jailed for 10 years in the 1980s after being convicted of extortion.

While he was behind bars in the Maze, Sayers studied to be a legal clerk. And when he was released he became the manager of a Belfast law firm that went bust.

Taylor & Co solicitors of Donegall Pass - who counted former UFF godfather Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Adair among its clients - was closed down by the Law Society following complaints by clients of missing money.

At the time, Sayers’ Co Fermanagh hotel was searched by Fraud Squad detectives.

Belfast Telegraph

By Noel McAdam
01 December 2006

Sinn Fein today formally dropped its boycott of Assembly meetings.

The party said it intended to “fully participate” in the so-called ‘transitional Assembly’ which is due to run until the end of January - and that would include putting down motions for debates.

The decision was announced by the party’s Assembly Group Leader John O’Dowd, Chief Whip Philip McGuigan and unionist ‘outreach’ officer Martina Anderson.

A senior source said the party had to recognise the new Assembly was different and “things had changed” with the nomination of Martin McGuinness as Deputy First Minister-designate.

It follows a number of meetings in the last few days and was ratified by a meeting of its business committee this morning.

The party boycotted most plenary sessions of the so-called ‘Peter Hain’ Assembly earlier this year - and effectively prevented more from taking place by its non-attendance.

Sinn Fein argued the plenary sessions, on a range of issues including the review of public administration, scrapping 50% remission for sex offenders and dangerous criminals and attacks on health workers, were a distraction from the main issue of restoring devolution.

The decision came as Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams prepared to meet Tony Blair in London to discuss obstacles over the devolution of policing and justice.

Mr Adams said he was intensifying contact with the Government in an effort to resolve the stand-off over policing within the St Andrews timescale.

:::u.tv:::

Mark Durkan’s SDLP has been accused of forming an unholy alliance with unionists in opposing plans for seven super councils in Northern Ireland under local government reform plans.

By:Press Association
SUNDAY 03/12/2006 10:16:44

Sinn Fein`s Alex Maskey told colleagues in Dublin their main nationalist rival in Northern Ireland had taken its eye off the ball by joining up with the Democratic Unionists and Ulster Unionists to attack his party over its support for seven super council model.

In a hard hitting attack, he claimed the SDLP should instead be focussing on ensuring there were adequate equality provisions for minority parties in each council area and it had also failed to put any meat on its calls for more councils.

Mr Maskey told his party`s National Elected Representatives Forum: “Sinn Fein have in recent months received much criticism from an unholy alliance of the SDLP, UUP and DUP on our view that the best model for future local government structures in the north is based on a seven council model with the necessary rigorous checks and balances built in.

“It would be very easy for Sinn Fein to ignore the fact that we believe that this model is the best way to ensure quality, to ensure fair representation and to ensure the effective delivery of services and instead fight for the retention of a vast number of councils and councillors which are simply not required.

“However let me be clear we will not accept any model without rigorous procedures built in to ensure that the excesses and abuses of local government witnessed in the north in the past will never be repeated for any community.

“The sort of self preservation approach which has dominated the response from SDLP councillors across the six counties and their joining forces with unionism, which is incidentally completely opposed to these proposals - a fact not lost on nationalists and republicans -, has masked the fact that the SDLP have yet to put any meat on anything other than saying they favour a 12 council model or indeed a 15 council model.”

Northern Ireland currently has 26 councils but under a Review of Public Administration undertaken by the Government that is set to be slashed to just seven super councils with increased powers.

Last month, Local Boundaries Commissioner Dick Mackenzie issued his initial proposals for the seven council areas which could come into being in 2009.

Under his plan, Belfast would be a bigger council area than was originally intended, swallowing up parts of Castlereagh, Lisburn and North Down councils.

The other councils would be known as:

:: Inner East Local Government District, incorporating Antrim, Carrickfergus, Newtownabbey Councils and the remainder of Lisburn City Council.

:: East Local Government District, comprising Ards, Down, parts of North Down and Castlereagh Councils.

:: South Local Government District, made up of Armagh, Banbridge, Craigavon and Newry and Mourne.

:: West Local Government District, incorporating Cookstown, Dungannon and South Tyrone, Fermanagh and Omagh.

:: North-West Local Government District, comprising of Derry, Limavady, Magherafelt and Strabane and part of Coleraine.

:: North-East Local Government District, made up of Ballymena, Ballymoney, Larne, Moyle and a major part of Coleraine.

The SDLP and cross-community Alliance Party have criticised the seven council model, claiming it would result in a sectarian carve up with unionists dominating councils in the east and nationalists in the west.

The DUP and Ulster Unionists have also been highly critical.

SDLP local government spokesperson Tommy Gallagher, in particular, warned Sinn Fein by supporting Mr Mackenzie`s plan to put nationalist districts currently in Lisburn into the new Belfast council area, they would be agreeing to proposals which left the nationalist minority in the Inner East Council even more vulnerable.

Mr Maskey said nowhere in any SDLP policy document or their response to the local government consultation the shape for a 12 or 15 council model.

“They have become obsessed by a numbers game and taken their eye off the real battle which is to ensure that equality provisions are at the heart of any new arrangements,” the South Belfast Assembly member said.

He accused the SDLP of being content to see councils like Castlereagh maintained, even though many nationalists believed it was an extenstion of DUP headquarters.

“If the SDLP want to keep Castlereagh Council is it safe to assume that they are comfortable with keeping Ballymena, Larne, Newtownabbey, Carrickfergus and Lisburn?” he asked.

“Maybe that is why the UUP and DUP have been so willing to team up with the SDLP in their campaign against the seven council model.

“The fact is that a seven council model with the necessary checks, balances and safeguards will provide effective representation for nationalists and republicans in these areas, in some cases for the first time.

“Sinn Fein having led the campaign against discrimination at local government level for decades, having refused to acquiesce to bad practice but instead to challenge it, we are not about to squander these gains by adopting a selfish or minimalist approach to this reform issue.

“We also must be mindful that unlike the SDLP we have an all-Ireland vision. We are not simply about local government in the North. We are about ending partition and developing a united and independent country.

“Part of this has to be greater integration of local government services and provision, particularly in the border region.

“Good work has already been done in this area and it is my view that a beefed up local government arrangement in the north will only benefit and enhance this work.”

Sunday Life

By Alan Murray
03 December 2006

There is no chance of the DUP agreeing to a date for the devolving of policing powers to the Stormont Assembly if it is restored in March, party sources have claimed.

Sources who attended the DUP’s special ‘clear the air’ meeting in Templepatrick on Friday say no support was expressed for the idea that powers over policing and justice matters should be devolved to a new Assembly in the foreseeable future.

One senior DUP figure who attended the meeting said yesterday: “Not one view was expressed by anyone to help the provos out of the mess they’ve got themselves into over the policing issue.

“That means that the devolution of policing powers to Stormont in the foreseeable future is a non-runner.”

One DUP figure who attended on Friday was prepared to make a brief on the record comment about the meeting, but only on the policing issue.

Ian Paisley jnr told Sunday Life: “It is absolutely correct that there was no view expressed to bring the devolution of policing powers forward or advance that in any way or support any move in that direction. The issue is non negotiable.

“It is a cart and horse situation. Until Sinn Fein/IRA supports the rule of law and the police service here there will be no dilution of that policy position.

“The policing issue is Sinn Fein’s problem, they have to sort it out.”

Sunday Life

03 December 2006

Police last week interviewed a number of Ulster journalists over Michael Stone’s attempt to wipe out the Sinn Fein leadership at Stormont.

Detectives probing the loyalist killer’s foiled attack at Parliament Buildings on November 24 spoke to a Sunday Life reporter last Wednesday.

Police requested the meeting after we revealed last week that Stone had boasted of his plans to do “SOMETHING BIG” just hours before his attempt at mass murder in east Belfast, which was halted by two brave security guards.

We told how Stone claimed his mysterious plans were “embargoed” until Friday lunchtime and how he had expected to be returned to prison.

Stone also boasted of his plans to kill Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Adair if we had been successful in arranging a meeting between the pair.

Although police were concentrating on the content of Stone’s telephone call, they also wanted to know more about the hitman’s state of mind in recent months.

A Sunday Life reporter made a full-statement to police about the conversation he had with the killer-turned-artist.

It is also understood that a number of other journalists were quizzed by police about similar claims made by Stone, who outlined his plans in a detailed letter posted to a journalist on the morning of his Stormont raid.

Cops also sought a court ruling last week in a bid to secure TV footage from the BBC and UTV of Stone’s hapless attempt to get past security guards. Stone remains in solitary confinement in Maghaberry Prison and senior security sources confidently expect he will plead guilty to the offence.

The east Belfast loyalist was hoping to join the loyalist wings at the high-security prison, but he was told on Saturday that he was “not welcome”.

Senior Ulster Political Research Group (UPRG) member David Nicholl said his party had no plans to visit Stone in prison.

Added Mr Nicholl: “I think the letters Stone sent clearly show that he acted alone. He does not belong to any organisation.

“The UDA leadership did not know of this attack and because Stone is no longer a member of the organisation, we have no reason to visit him.”

—————————-

A dangerous deluded man…

By Brian Rowan

“Living in the cell or living in Rathcoole will make no difference to him because he lives in his head,” said a senior loyalist.

He is talking about Michael Stone - trying to make sense of what happened at Stormont a little over a week ago yet knowing there’s none to be made.

“In his own head he’s the super killer, the professional elite - James Bond,” the source added.

He’s still talking about Stone - the man, who even before he became known on the public stage, used to wipe his fingerprints from the cup and his knife and fork after eating at a chippy in east Belfast.

This, the source suggested, was Stone “living this perfect killer life”.

It’s the stuff of another world - the place that Stone became lost in. Stormont may well have been his last stand.

The chief constable called him a lunatic, and the loyalist source who spoke to this newspaper suggested that Stone is now “beyond help”.

So, is that the simple story? Someone regarded as a madman, someone who has always been a maverick, just lost it those two Fridays past?

Eighteen years after he was seen shooting and killing on camera inside Milltown Cemetery, Stone turned up at Stormont with a bag full of bombs.

But his two public performances - all those years apart - were very different. Just think about it.

At the cemetery, Stone had real guns, real grenades and he did real damage.

At Parliament Buildings he carried a replica pistol, improvised devices and no one died.

Nor, I imagine - despite the ranting and writings of Stone - was anyone meant to die.

Would a man on a murder mission - so determined to kill Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness - and sensing that Ulster was being sold out, really stop to spray graffiti on the Stormont wall?

I think we all know the answer to that one.

Everything about Stone at Stormont those two Fridays ago contradicted everything that this very public of loyalists had said in recent years.

He’d long ago accepted republicans within the peace process. He’d ventured into truth and reconciliation, and, not once but several times, he said his “war” was over.

I suppose in one sense it was and is, yet in another it goes on inside his own head.

There’s his battle with Johnny Adair - the war of their egos. It’s about who is biggest and best - their kind of biggest and best - within loyalism.

On Tuesday Adair was the subject of an hour-long television documentary, and Stone, it seems, just had to get in first.

Was that his Stormont mission - to make the headlines before Johnny? Maybe it was.

The UDA has spent the days since Stormont washing its hands of Stone, insisting that he acted alone, that the terror organisation had no prior knowledge of his intentions.

“He knows that we wouldn’t have let him do it,” a senior loyalist source told Sunday Life.

“If he had killed one person, we were all f*****d.”

And the source dismissed suggestions that Stone had been given some assistance from inside the loyalist group.

If that had been the case “you would have thought we would have given him a gun” the source said.

Loyalists are convinced that what happened at Parliament Building in Stormont was Stone playing for publicity.

“He wouldn’t let go of the door because he wanted to stay in front of the cameras,” the loyalist source observed.

Now he is out of our vision, back in prison, on his own, no longer wanted by the loyalist organisation he was once a part of.

What is Stone’s life now - inside jail, inside his cell, inside his head?

——————-

Price soars in USA for killer’s art

By Stephen Breen

The price of paintings by notorious loyalist killer Michael Stone has soared in the USA following his exploits at Stormont.

A bid of £10,000 was made on one of his drawings last week by mystery art collector in America.

The painting, which was being sold on eBbay, belongs to an art collector in Lisburn.

Although Stone has already made thousands from his art, this is believed to be the highest offer made for a piece.

Pals of Stone claim his notoriety is helping to sell the paintings.

It is believed Stone will continue his art work in Maghaberry Prison, where he is on remand for attempting to kill five people at Stormont.

Said a loyalist source: “His art was big business after he was released from jail but it’s even bigger now after what he did at Stormont.

“He’s on his own at the jail and the only thing he can do with his time is paint.”

Sunday Life

By Stephen Breen
03 December 2006

Sinn Fein was last night bracing itself for more resignations from the party over the issue of policing.

A senior republican source told Sunday Life that the party’s leadership is “worried” about the number of rank-and-file members who oppose plans to support the PSNI.

Concerns were raised last week after seven members of the party in north Antrim resigned over the issue.

They included veteran republican Laurence O’Neill, who was jailed for eight years in 1972 after he was caught with guns and explosives.

The 62-year-old, from Glenravel, in Co Antrim, told Sunday Life he left the party after receiving “pressure” from senior republicans to support the Sinn Fein leadership.

He said: “I was visited by two senior republicans and told to toe the party line on the issue of policing.

“I don’t want to name any names, but they also told me not to attend any debates on the issue which were not organised by Sinn Fein.

“I resigned after they told me I could not attend a debate at Conway Mill in Belfast last Monday. But those who barred me from attending went along and that is just hypocrisy to me.

“I’m disappointed I had to leave the party, because I have been a member of the republican movement since its formation.”

He believes there will be more resignations over the coming weeks.

He added: “There is a lot of unhappiness about this issue and I feel policing should have been resolved when the Good Friday Agreement negotiations were taking place.”

Sunday Life

By Alan Murray
03 December 2006

Acid has been doused on cars belonging to the mother of Andre and Ihab Shoukri, and the teenage daughter of one of their best known supporters.

The attacks were carried out in the early hours of Friday morning when the vehicles were parked in the Westland Road area of north Belfast.

Earlier in the week slogans alleging that two senior members of the new UDA leadership in the area were police touts and drug dealers were sprayed on several walls in the area.

The incidents underline the continuing tension between UDA factions in north Belfast following the major fallout between Shoukri supporters and the larger inner council grouping in the summer.

Cheryl McClean, whose Clio car was scorched by acid on Friday, said yesterday it was the second time her vehicle had been targeted.

“They did it a few months ago and now they’re torturing me again. They broke into my home a couple of weeks ago and now they’ve returned to attack my property again,” said the 19 year-old hairdresser.

Tension in the area between the two UDA factions has risen since Andre Shoukri - who was expelled from the organisation - warned in an exclusive Sunday Life interview that he intended to confront his enemies in the organisation when he is released from prison, where he is on remand on serious racketeering charges.

The attack on his mother Katie’s car will fuel his anger inside Maghaberry Prison. Katie Shoukri passed her driving test just two weeks ago and was using her Astra car to carry out community work in the area. She’s been told it is probably ‘uneconomical’ to repair.

Community figures in the north Belfast area have been anxious to work within the community to ease tension between the two UDA factions and have had discussions with the leadership of the inner council faction.

BBC

A 47-year-old man has died after being hit by a wave at Ardglass harbour in County Down.

Many areas experienced flooding during the storms

It is believed a wave struck the man as he was walking along the pier at about 2100 GMT on Saturday.

He was taken to the Downe Hospital in Downpatrick where he was pronounced dead.

His death comes after the Met Office warned of severe gales across Northern Ireland. There are reports of flooding in a number of areas.

Coastguard Watch Officer Rob Steventon said lifeboat crews from Newcastle and Whiterock were dispatched to Ardglass after the alarm was raised.

“At 9.30pm, the police informed us a person had been recovered from the water and taken to hospital in Downpatrick by ambulance,” he said.

“Unfortunately he has lost his life.”

Power cuts

Meanwhile, a number of roads have been closed due to the severe weather.

The Portaferry Road in County Down between Newtownards and Mount Stewart has been closed due to severe flooding.

In County Antrim, the Cushendall Road is closed between Ballycastle and Cushendall, near Glendun Viaduct, due to fallen trees. Motorists are advised to avoid these areas.

About 1,000 homes are currently without electricity due to the storms.

Robin Greer, NIE spokesperson, said: “There have been no major faults.

“Most of them have been small incidents affecting four or five homes. Our teams are ensuring people are being put back on the network.

“We have 500 staff, however, on standby throughout the weekend should major power cuts take place.”

Ferry sailings from Belfast and Stranraer have also been disrupted.

For further information contact Stena on 08705 755755.

BBC

A new whiskey named after the iconic republican Michael Collins has raised echos of the Irish civil war.

The new whiskey was launched in Ireland recently

A US-based spirits company recently launched the Michael Collins Irish Whiskey in Ireland with a picture of the War of Independence veteran on the label.

However, Fine Gael councillors from Collins’s native County Cork have taken exception to his name being used.

The public representatives have criticised the product which features a copy of Collins’ signature from the 1921 Treaty.

Collins, one of the most prominent IRA leaders during the Irish War of Independence, signed the treaty with the British government which led to the creation of the Irish Free State but split the republican movement.

In agreeing to the treaty, Collins famously said he was “signing his own death warrant” and his eventual assassination by anti-agreement republicans during the civil war saw him become one of Irish nationalism’s most famous figures.

Councillors claimed the company was “acting in poor taste” by using Collins, nick-named the Big Fella, to promote the spirit.

Cork councillor Tom Sheahon said the use of Collins’s name on the whiskey “created the wrong impression”.

He said it appeared to be “simply a marketing ploy to sell the whiskey in the US”.

Cork councillors objected to the name and logo

“I am a huge admirer of Michael Collins, I always have been. He is the most important national figure in public life for the last century,” he said.

“I think it is inappropriate.”

Fine Gael former deputy leader Nora Owen, who is also a great-niece of Michael Collins, said the family had been contacted about the whiskey.

“I don’t have any great problem with it being there and the family was consulted,” she said.

More than 50,000 cases of the whiskey, made by the Cooley Distillery in County Louth, have been sold since its United States launch on St Patrick’s Day.

Ballymena-born film star Liam Neeson played the part of Michael Collins in the successful movie directed by Neil Jordan.

Belfast Telegraph

By Noel McAdam
02 December 2006

Church of Ireland Primate Robin Eames has warned against any “quick fix” approach over policing and devolution.

After he met DUP leader Ian Paisley yesterday for the second time in less than a month, Dr Eames said people were looking for evidence that the political parties can build trust.

Accompanied by a number of Church of Ireland Bishops for the first time, the Archbishop of Armagh said stable government would prove impossible without trust.

The meeting, which included DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson, party chairman Lord Mollow and Assembly member Arlene Foster, also dealt with a number of social and economic issues including how legislation is dealt with at Westminster.

But, just as he did at his ground-breaking meeting with Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams earlier this month, Dr Eames said they had “pressed hard” on the policing issue.

And he said he believed dates and timescale were of secondary importance. “We have been through too much in this province for a quick fix,” he said.

“There are two levels here. There is the level of the political parties and then the other level of the people we represent, ordinary people doing ordinary things.

“We very much want to make their voices heard and at the moment they are looking for evidence that trust is possible.”

Dr Eames was joined by the Right Rev Alan Harper, Bishop of Connor; the Rt Rev Harold Miller, Bishop of Down and Dromore; the Rt Rev Michael Jackson, Bishop of Clogher and the Rt Rev Ken Clarke, Bishop of Kilmore.

The Primate, who is going into retirement, said that the meeting was the last in a cycle of meetings planned with all the political parties.