SAOIRSE32

BBC

Prominent north Belfast loyalist Andre Shoukri has been sentenced to nine years jail for trying to extort thousands of pounds from a pub owner.

Leading loyalist Andre Shoukri has been jailed for nine years

He was jailed on 18 charges including blackmail, intimidation and acquiring and using criminal property.

Belfast Crown Court heard he used his Ulster Defence Association status to force his victim to hand over cash.

“Shoukri was very aggressive and angry and demanded money be paid to him then and there - it was,” prosecution said.

Prosecuting barrister Gordon Kerr said the notorious paramilitary had become more and more aggressive, constantly making demands and accusing his victim of holding money back.

“She would say she was being directly threatened at this stage.”

The charges against 30-year-old Shoukri included using “certain criminal property, namely a money transfer” from a building society to buy his Clare Heights home in Belfast in November 2004.

Jailed with him for nine years was John Boreland, 38 from Sunningdale Gardens, on four charges of blackmail, one of intimidation and one of possessing a firearm, or imitation firearm to commit assault.

Also jailed, for seven years, was 25-year-old Terry Harbinson from Tyndale Gardens, Belfast, who admitted blackmail, and intimidation and possession of a firearm, or imitation firearm.

Former Met policeman Ian Peter Craig, 47, of Garland Hill, Manse Road, Belfast, turned mortgage advisor who aided and abetted, counselled or procured Shoukri in the dishonest obtaining of a money transfer received two years, suspended for three years.

A police spokesman claimed that the police operation “had the effect of dismantling the leadership of the UDA in north Belfast” at that particular time.

He added that Shoukri, Boreland and Harbinson “thought they were above the law”.

“You could say they thought they were untouchable. The fact is they were not,” he said.

“Those who prey on individuals and communities through extortion are not untouchable.”

International Herald Tribune

The Associated Press
Published: November 30, 2007

DUBLIN, Ireland: A senior figure in the outlawed Ulster Defense Association, the major Protestant gang in Northern Ireland, received a nine-year prison sentence Friday for his extortion and intimidation of a pub owner.

Andre Shoukri, the former commander of UDA units in north Belfast, was convicted of 18 criminal counts after undercover police acting on a tipoff observed him over months demanding money from the pub owner and threatening to put her out of business if she failed to comply.

Shoukri, 29, the burly son of an Egyptian immigrant to Belfast, once had hundreds of loyal deputies under his command. But other commanders of the anti-Catholic gang expelled Shoukri, his brother Ihab and dozens of others following his November 2005 arrest.

His case highlighted the brutal power that the UDA still wields in the poorest Protestant parts of Northern Ireland. The group runs rackets in extortion, counterfeiting, smuggling, drug dealing and prostitution — and rely on intimidation to prevent people from going to the police.

That didn’t work against the pub owner Shoukri targeted. Identified in court only as Witness A, the woman turned to police when Shoukri’s demands got so unreasonable and dangerous that she felt she had no choice.
Four of Shoukri’s accomplices in extortion and fraud also received prison terms Friday ranging from two years to nine years.

Police Detective Inspector Mark Brown said Shoukri and his deputies “thought they were untouchable. The fact is they were not.”

Witness A testified that Shoukri came into her business in June 2004 and demanded 1,000 pounds (US$2,000, €1,500) a week, otherwise he would close her business by force. She negotiated him down to 200 pounds (US$400, €300).

She said Shoukri’s men also placed slot machines in the pub and collected all the money from them.

In December 2004, Shoukri and his henchmen demanded an extra 2,500 pounds (US$5,000, €3,750) after they attended a friend’s wedding reception in the pub. The following month, they demanded an extra 1,000 pounds (US$2,000, €1,500), claiming her pub had enjoyed a particularly busy Christmas.

Witness A turned to the police in May 2005, after Shoukri’s acolytes had taken to ordering and carrying off food and alcoholic beverages without paying or even asking. She said she could no longer pay her rent and faced eviction.

Shoukri also pointed a gun at her husband’s head and demanded to be placed on the pub’s payroll as “restaurant manager” — a fraudulent claim he needed to help him secure a mortgage.

Shoukri has been in and out for prison for the past decade. He was convicted of the 1996 manslaughter of a teenage Catholic tennis player, who was beaten up and then fatally run over outside a Belfast pub, and spent just eight months behind bars for that crime.

He was convicted in 2000 of extorting money from a restaurant owner and, after his release, became the top UDA figure in north Belfast.

The UDA killed more than 300 people, mostly Catholic civilians, in a 1971-1994 campaign to terrorize the host community of the outlawed Irish Republican Army. The UDA since has loosely observed a cease-fire and, on Nov. 11, declared it had renounced violence.

Irish Independent

By Tom Brady and Ciaran Byrne
Friday November 30 2007

Residents of south Armagh have indicated to gardai that they are willing to travel across the border to be interviewed as part of the investigation into the murder of Paul Quinn.

Senior garda officers confirmed last night they were continuing to focus on the suspected involvement of Provisional IRA activists and sympathisers in the savage killing.

And they revealed that a massive community response has boosted their prospects of tracking down the killers of truck driver Mr Quinn, who was battered to death near the border last month.

The 21-year-old victim died in hospital after being beaten with iron bars and cudgels by a gang of up to 10 men. He had been lured to a shed on a farm near the Co Monaghan village of Oram on Saturday, October 22.

Solidarity

Mr Quinn’s father Stephen repeated his belief that the IRA was responsible, as 200 people gathered in the Co Armagh village of Cullyhanna in support of a campaign to bring Paul’s killers to justice on Wednesday night.

“It’s about control. Paul got into fights with two of them, connected to the IRA. There’s no one else who could do such a thing around this area,” he told BBC’s ‘Newsnight’.

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has said he believes that “criminals” killed Mr Quinn and he has also asserted his belief there was no IRA involvement, a view shared by the British government and Sinn Fein.

But International Monitoring Commission member John Grieve, a former Scotland Yard commander in charge of anti-terrorism, has said he believes the IRA was involved.

It is understood the IMC does not believe the murder was directly sanctioned by the IRA’s leadership, but the body does believe that it involved local people who are members or former members of the IRA.

Report

It has also emerged that the IMC has not, however, been asked to produce an early report into the killing.

The Irish and British governments asked the IMC to produce an urgent report after the murder of Robert McCartney, outside a Belfast pub three years ago, but ministers have not done so this time. Instead, the Quinn family will have to wait for the IMC’s next six-monthly report, due next April.

Since the cross-border investigation began, gardai have been attempting to convince the local communities to break the code of silence imposed on them in the past by the Provisional IRA and help them in their hunt for the killers.

Mr Quinn had been told to leave his native area after he had earlier clashed with a republican and the son of another republican. But he ignored the warnings and continued to live in Cullyhanna in south Armagh.

He was known to have associated with a group of young fuel smugglers along the Armagh-Monaghan border.

Gardai believe some of those associates may be able to provide information, and that some people are prepared to ignore threats.

Senior garda officers said last night they were receiving excellent co-operation from the PSNI and the forces were working together on house-to-house inquiries and on joint checkpoints.

- Tom Brady and Ciaran Byrne

BBC

A former Ulster Defence Regiment soldier in Ballymoney has been warned of a threat to his life.

The man is a former member of the UDR

MEP Jim Allister said he had been speaking to the man and the police, since the man was informed of the threat on Wednesday.

He said that it was a distressing situation for the man and his family.

“Whatever brand of republicanism this threat is coming from doesn’t really matter - the fact is that it is utterly unacceptable,” he said.

Irelandclick

By Ciarán Barnes
30/11/2007

A FASCINATING new book contains the chilling British army death warrant issued against a young West Belfast soldier shot dead for deserting during World War I. Lance-Corporal Peter Sands, from Abyssinia Street off the Falls Road, was executed by firing squad in France in 1915.

His court martial papers, signed by Commanding Officer Douglas Haig of the 1st Army, ominously read: “This is a bad case and I recommend the extreme penalty be carried out.”
Sands’ killing, like those of the 27 other Irish soldiers killed for alleged breaches of discipline at the front, was controversial. The 26-year-old had been allowed to leave the trenches of the Western Front for a few days home leave. In Belfast he lost his travel papers. He went to his local barracks, but it had no record of him and told him to go home.
After a few months living openly in uniform in Belfast, Sands was arrested by the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and charged with desertion. He was returned to France and after a court martial was executed by firing squad.
The court martial papers were uncovered by BBC journalist Stephen Walker in the National Archive in London. The award-winning reporter has just published a poignant yet gripping book on the 28 Irishmen who fought for the British army during World War I and who were executed for cowardice or desertion.
‘Forgotten Soldiers – The Irishmen Shot at Dawn’ gives a remarkable insight into the events leading up to the local man’s execution.
After his arrest in Belfast he told his captors: “Had I intended to desert I would have worn plain clothes, but up to the time I was arrested I always wore uniform.”
He also explained that he had lost his travel papers and had approached his local barracks, but was refused a return to the battlefield.
Despite this perfectly reasonable excuse, good character references, and nine years of military service, the soldier was sentenced to death.
Sands was executed by firing squad at Fleurbaix on September 15, 1915. He was buried in a nearby churchyard, but after the war his grave could not be found, so his name was later commemorated in Cabaret-Rouge Military Cemetery at Souchez.
Reflecting on Sands’ case, Stephen Walker’s background in investigatory journalism leads him to conclude that the case of the Falls Road man contains more questions than answers.
“The papers do not give a detailed explanation of why the death penalty was necessary, nor does it appear that Sands’ story about his lost travel warrant was thoroughly investigated,” writes the author.
“Was Corporal Wright, who Sands claims he spoke to at the Belfast barracks, ever interviewed to confirm his account? If so, did he confirm Sands’ story? On the issue of Sands’ previous good behaviour, was this not considered worthy enough to have led to the sentence being commuted?”

• Forgotten Soldiers – The Irishmen Shot at Dawn. By Stephen Walker. Published by Gill & Macmillan