SAOIRSE32

Loyalist escapes life sentence for trying to murder Adams and McGuinness in armed attack at Stormont

Belfast Telegraph
9 December 2008

Loyalist killer Michael Stone could walk free from prison in eight years after he escaped a life sentence yesterday for trying to kill senior Sinn Fein leaders.

The 53-year-old was jailed for 16 years at Belfast Crown Court for the attempted murders of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness in a bizarre armed attack on the Northern Ireland Assembly.

However, the former UDA member, who gained notoriety in 1988 when he killed three mourners at an IRA funeral in west Belfast, will be eligible to have that sentence halved.

The father of nine, who claimed his actions at Stormont in November 2006 were performance art, was convicted of six murders in 1989, but granted early release on license in 2000 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

His license was suspended in the wake of the incident at Parliament Buildings and the Sentence Review Commissioners will now decide whether or not his license should be revoked. If as expected they do, the authorities would set a minimum term he should spend in prison for the 1989 convictions.

However, the Prison Service said both time already served in prison and time spent out on release on license (a total of more than 20 years) will form part of the tariff.

Therefore, if the tariff is set at 28 years or less, Stone could be considered for release once he has served half of the 16-year sentence for the Stormont attack.

The decision to set him free will then rest with Parole Commissioners. The highest minimum tariff ever set in Northern Ireland is 35 years.

Handing down his sentence yesterday, Mr Justice Deeney told Stone he had decided not to give him a life term on the grounds that his actions had not resulted in any serious injury and the fact he suffers from a degenerative muscle-wasting condition. He acknowledged this disease would see him confined to a wheelchair in the future. However, the judge said he also had to consider the serious nature of the offences that Stone had already committed before the events at Stormont.

“He could hardly have a worse criminal record,” said Mr Deeney, “and I do take into account the very grave offences of which he was convicted in 1989.”

Stone, dressed in denim, sat impassively as the sentence was delivered. During his four-and-a-half week non-jury trial, his defence team had claimed his actions at Parliament Buildings were part of an elaborate comic parody.

However, delivering his verdict last month Mr Deeney dismissed this theory as unbelievable.

As well as two attempted murder counts, Stone was found guilty of seven other charges relating to the Stormont attack, including possession of nail bombs, three knives, a garrotte, an axe, and causing criminal damage to the Stormont building.

Loyalist hitman joined Ulster Defence Association at 16 and hatched plots against Ken Livingstone, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuiness

James Sturcke and Haroon Siddique
Guardian
Monday December 8 2008

Michael Stone, one of Northern Ireland’s most notorious Protestant paramilitaries. Photograph: Reuters/Paul McErlane

Former loyalist hitman Michael Stone shot his way to international infamy in 1988 when he tried to kill Sinn Féin’s leaders during a funeral at Belfast’s Milltown cemetery.

Television cameras captured the horror as he opened fire, killing three people and injuring dozens, including pensioners and children, at the funeral of three IRA members shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar.

But he failed to kill his targets, Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, and was captured by mourners, beaten and bundled into a car. He was rescued by police officers while being driven to an IRA execution. His thighbone was dislocated and he still walks with a slight limp.

He was sentenced to 850 years in prison for a string of killings but was released under the Good Friday agreement in 2000.

Born into a sectarian hotbed in east Belfast, Stone joined the Tartans, an infamous loyalist group, when he was 13. At 16, he had already joined the Ulster Defence Association and served time in Belfast’s Crumlin Road prison for possession of firearms.

He hatched the idea for the Milltown cemetery hit after an IRA bomb killed 11 people attending a Remembrance Day memorial service at the cenotaph in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, in 1987.

Stone is known for his political thinking - his cell at the Maze prison was well stocked with Marxist literature - and there was speculation for a time that he would attempt to enter Northern Ireland’s political arena.

Instead, while living in hiding, became an established artist after developing his interest in painting while in prison.

In 2006, before the attack on Stormont, he revealed he had been the hitman hired in the early 1980s to kill Ken Livingstone, who was leader of the Greater London council at the time and had caused anger by appearing to be sympathetic to republicans.

Stone planned to disguise himself as a jogger and shoot Livingstone as he entered a London tube station. The operation was compromised and abandoned days before it was due to go ahead.

His November 2006 attempt to kill Adams and McGuiness at Stormont was all the more dramatic for being captured by television cameras.

During this year’s trial, Stone fell back on his art for his defence, claiming it was a performance art stunt – an explanation rejected out of hand by the judge. He was sentenced to 16 years in jail.

By Joe Diamond
Belfast Media
Andersonstown News Monday

A POWERFUL new play examining the history of Long Kesh jail is to receive its world premiere in Belfast in January.

The production, Chronicles of Long Kesh, was written by acclaimed local playwright, Martin Lynch, and will be staged by Green Shoots Productions.

It tells the story of the world-famous jail, as seen through the eyes of both republican and loyalist prisoners, and the prison officers who worked there, from its opening in August 1971, to its closure in July 2000.

Although the play covers many major events from the prison’s history – including the burning of Long Kesh in 1974, the hunger strikes, and the Great Escape – Martin says he deliberately tried to concentrate on the stories of ordinary prisoners, rather than those who went on to become famous – or infamous – later in the troubles.

“Many people will be able to identify with the stories and recognise some of the types of people in the play. As part of my research I interviewed hundreds of people who had been in the jail. I met so many real characters and heard so many remarkable stories – some of which had me roaring with laughter, and some had me close to tears,” said Martin.

“The human experience had a real impact on me, and I hope I have done their stories justice,” he added.

Martin, who is also founder and creative director of Green Shoots Productions, said he had always been interested in prison literature, everything from the Young Irelander John Mitchel’s jail journals to the Black Panther George Jackson’s prison letters.

“As a child I grew up hearing stories in the house about people who were in jail in the 1940s and ’50s and they always fascinated me. When the Troubles started two of my brothers were interned, and I had friends and relatives in jail throughout the 70s and 80s, so I have a personal interest in the issue too.

“There are no party politics in the play, and everyone’s point of view is included. Some of the characters say things that some people won’t want to hear, for example, sometimes prison officers are criticised and sometimes they are praised.

“I couldn’t have written the play 15 or even ten years ago, but now a lot of stories have started to emerge. It was really only possible with the end of the Troubles because it has allowed a calmer reflection on the whole experience,” he said.

Martin added that he is very keen for ordinary people to see the play, because thousands of working class people went through the jail over the years. He has planned an innovative community outreach programme to run alongside the production.

The play will be shown first in St Kevin’s Hall in North Queen Street – a key community venue – and the performances will be followed by a talk-back session to allow the cast and audience to explore issues raised in the play.

The production will then move to the Waterfront Studio for its world premiere before taking in a comprehensive tour of the North, including a performance at Maghaberry Prison.

Two debates, one on the literature of Long Kesh and one on experiences of political violence, will be held in conjunction with the play, and both will feature panels including republican and loyalist ex-prisoners.

The play will be staged in St Kevin’s Hall in North Queen Street on Friday, January 9 and Saturda,y January 10. Tickets are £6 and are available from the hall, or for bookings phone 07979575340.

It will then move to the Waterfront Studio from Wednesday, January 14 to Saturday, January 31. To book a ticket phone 90334455 or log on to www.waterfront.co.uk

The debate on the literature of Long Kesh will be held at 7.30pm on Wednesday, January 7 at Belfast Exposed in Donegall Street, and the debate on experiences of political violence will be held at 4.45pm on Saturday, January 24 at the Waterfront Hall Studio.

For more information email info@greenshootproduc tions.com or phone 90291555.

By Conor Ryan, Political Correspondent
Irish Examiner
09 December 2008

MORE than 250 children living within the Chernobyl nuclear disaster fallout zone will be allowed to spend Christmas here after Government officials struck a deal with their Belorussian counterparts.

Intensive negotiations have taken place since September when Belarus moved to ban respite trips by 50,000 children because of negative publicity in America.

But yesterday Foreign Affairs Minister Micheál Martin said a meeting in Minsk between officials from both countries was successful.

Mr Martin said he expected the deal to be signed soon: “Both sides agree that it should be signed as soon as possible and before the first group of children due to travel to Ireland for Christmas depart Belarus.

“The agreement will allow for the unrestricted continuation of visits by all children under 18, and will in the short term allow Christmas visits to proceed,” he said.

The children will fly into Shannon where they will meet host families from around the country.

Adi Roche of the Chernobyl Children’s Project International said she was “overjoyed”.

“This was Christmas coming early. Words cannot describe how relieved we all are for the children and their host families up and down the country who can at last spend Christmas together.

“We are the first country in the world to sign such an historic inter-governmental agreement,” she said.

Last week Mr Martin outlined to Fine Gael’s Brian Hayes the complicated nature of negotiations.

Talks between the two countries were ongoing for 12 weeks including a meeting between the two foreign ministers in Brussels.

On November 14, a draft agreement was thrashed out and the text was sent to Minsk through the Irish Embassy in Moscow.

This was an update on a provisional bilateral agreement worked out between the two countries on October 14, two days before a presidential decree in Belarus banned all trips.

On November 28, Mr Martin spoke to his opposite number in Belarus to accelerate the discussions in time for the scheduled visit of children at Christmas time.

This paved the way for yesterday’s successful meeting in Minsk.

BBC
11 Nov 2008

The coffins of Brian McKinney and John McClory being carried off in 1999

The IRA admitted in 1999 that it murdered and buried at secret locations nine of the so-called Disappeared. Four of these bodies have so far been found.

As the family of west Belfast man Danny McIlhone waits for the results of tests on remains found during a search in County Wicklow, BBC News looks at the stories behind the Disappeared.

THOSE FOUND

Eamon Molloy: Abducted from his home in the Ardoyne area of north Belfast in 1975, after being accused by the IRA of being an informer. It was claimed he was quartermaster in one of the IRA’s three Belfast brigades and that his activities forced the IRA into calling a ceasefire that year.

His body was discovered in a coffin left at Faughert graveyard near Dundalk, County Louth in 1999. after IRA intermediaries passed information to the commission for the location of the victims remains.
‘Disappeared’ victim identified

Brian McKinney
Brian McKinney: Twenty-two when he was abducted with his friend John McClory in 1978, he had first gone missing a few days beforehand, but returned 48 hours later, beaten and distraught. He had allegedly admitted to stealing IRA weapons for use in robberies.

His parents made him give back the money and it seemed the matter had been “resolved”, but when he failed to return hope from work soon after, his family began to fear the worst. His body was uncovered in a bogside location in County Monaghan in 1999.
‘My tears for Brian’

John McClory: The 17-year-old was friends with Brian McKinney and went missing at the same time. His body was also recovered at the same site.
Body finds encourage searchers

Jean McConville
Jean McConville: The widowed mother-of-10 was killed in 1972 after she went to the aid of a fatally wounded British soldier outside her home in west Belfast’s Divis flats.

After numerous searches, the 37-year-old’s remains were finally found at Shelling Hill beach in County Louth in August 2003.
Mother body find confirmed
IRA ‘wrong’ admits Adams

STILL MISSING

Danny McIlhone: The west Belfast man went missing from his home in 1981. The IRA said Mr McIlhone was not suspected of being an informer but was being questioned about stealing weapons - it was claimed he was killed in a struggle with the person who was guarding him.

There have been two unsuccessful searches - in 1999 and 2000 - for his remains, but his family is hopeful that a discovery in the Wicklow mountains in November 2008 will be confirmed as him.

Kevin McKee: An IRA member, the Belfast man was alleged to have been a British army agent and member of its Military Reaction Force, an undercover unit. He was interrogated and murdered by the IRA in 1972.

Columba McVeigh
Columba McVeigh: The 17-year-old from Donaghmore, County Tyrone was abducted and murdered by the IRA in 1975 after allegedly confessing to being a British army agent with instructions to infiltrate the IRA.

Extensive searches for his body were carried out in 2003 at a bog in Emyvale, County Monaghan, but nothing was found. His mother, Vera, was a tireless campaigner for the return of his remains - she died in 2007.
Disappeared victim’s mother dies

Brendan McGraw: The IRA claimed that the 24-year-old from Belfast confessed to being a British provocateur and Military Reaction Force undercover agent in 1978.

Seamus Wright: The Belfast man was an IRA member, but in 1972 he was interrogated and murdered by his former colleagues who accused him of being a British army agent and a member of its Military Reaction Force.

OTHER MISSING PEOPLE

The Independent Commission on the Location of Victims Remains is also looking for a number of other people suspected of being abducted and murdered during the Troubles.

Charles Armstrong
Charles Armstrong: The 57-year-old father-of-five from Crossmaglen in south Armagh, went missing on his way to Mass in 1981. His car was later found near a cinema in Dundalk. The IRA denied any involvement in his disappearance at the time.
Fresh search for missing man

Gerard Evans
Gerard Evans: Last seen hitch-hiking in County Monaghan in March 1979, no-one has ever admitted responsibility for the 24-year-old’s death. In March 2008, his aunt was given a map claiming to identify the location of his body but as yet, nothing has been found.
Appeal from Disappeared searchers

Seamus Ruddy
Seamus Ruddy: The 32-year-old from Newry, County Down, was working as a teacher in Paris when he went missing in 1985. It is believed he was killed by members of the INLA. Fresh searches were carried out in 2008 after his family were told his remains were in a forest in Normandy, but they found nothing.
Family of INLA murder man misled

Captain Robert NairacCaptain Robert Nairac: The SAS-trained officer was abducted by the IRA in Jonesborough County Armagh, in May 1977. The 29-year-old was abducted when he visited a pub at Drumintee, south Armagh. He had been in the pub singing rebel songs. He was seized during a struggle in the pub’s car park and taken across the border to a field at Ravensdale, County Louth, and later shot dead.
McGuinness in Nairac body appeal

BBC

The families of “the Disappeared” have appealed for fresh information about where their loved ones were buried.

In a letter to media outlets, they said some people with information had not contacted the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains.

DNA tests are being carried out on remains found last month in Wicklow

They said new leads would not be used in court or passed to other agencies, adding: “We don’t want revenge or retribution, all we want is closure.”

Tests are ongoing on remains thought to be Danny McIlhone, missing since 1981.

The discovery was made in the County Wicklow mountains last month. The IRA has claimed responsibility for the west Belfast man’s death.

The families, who described themselves as the “forgotten victims of the Troubles”, said they believed “that time is running out for us” but the discovery was encouraging.

“It underlines what we have always believed, that with the right information, the remains of our loved ones can be recovered.”

They added: “If you believe in justice and human rights then do the honourable thing and tell the Commission what you know so that we can give our loved ones a Christian burial and let us have a grave to visit and grieve.”

Actor James Nesbitt will join the families later at an event organised by the Wave Trauma Centre to appeal for help finding their bodies.

“Theirs is a story of unimaginable pain and suffering, and this will continue until the remains of their loved ones are returned,” he said.

“The families have always said that they don’t want revenge or retribution, but closure, and every time I meet them the dignity they show in the face of their suffering is humbling.”

The IRA admitted in 1999 that it murdered and buried nine of the so-called Disappeared - Seamus Wright, Kevin McKee, Jean McConville, Columba McVeigh, Brendan Megraw, John McClory, Brian McKinney, Eamon Molloy and Mr McIlhone - in secret locations.

The bodies of four - Eamon Molloy, Brian McKinney, John McClory and Jean McConville - have been found.

Others who vanished during the Troubles include Gerry Evans, Charles Armstrong, Robert Nairac and Seamus Ruddy, who disappeared in France and whose murder was admitted by the INLA.

• The confidential telephone number of the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains is 00800-55585500 while its postal address is ICLVR, PO BOX, 10827, Dublin 2.

Sean Michaels
Guardian
Tuesday December 9 2008

It’s not just snobby critics picking on Dido these days – a member of parliament has now condemned the singer. Gregory Campbell, MP for East Derry, criticised Dido’s new album, Safe Trip Home, for borrowing lyrics from an Irish republican song.

The words appear in the song Let’s Do the Things We Normally Do, co-written by Dido and producer Jon Brion. “Armoured cars and tanks and guns,” she sings, “came to take away our sons / But every man must stand behind / the men behind the wire.”

These lyrics will be familiar to anyone who knows ‘The Men Behind the Wire’, written by the Northern Irish band Barleycorn. The original rebel ballad describes raids by British soldiers, and the “men behind the wire” are those nationalists held at Long Kesh prison.

“Given her Irish roots, it is inconceivable that she doesn’t know the background of the wording,” Campbell declared last week. Dido’s late father, William O’Malley Armstrong, was an Irish publisher.

“She must know it was written about people who were murderers, arsonists and terrorists,” Campbell continued. “She should clarify her position so that her fans and the wider public knows where she stands on these things.”

Besides being an MP, Gregory Campbell is also a member of the Northern Irish Assembly, serving as minister for sports, arts and leisure. He is a member of the Democratic Unionist Party.

News Letter
09 December 2008

SDLP Minister Margaret Ritchie has admitted she made a mistake describing the loyal orders as “sectional and sectarian”.

In correspondence, responding to a letter of objection to her comments by over 30 Unionist MLAs involved in the Orange Order, Ms Ritchie recognises if she was making the same point again, she would not use the same words.

Last month, the SDLP representative caused fury among Orange leaders when speaking at a GAA event, she described the Loyal Orders as “deeply divisive in our community”.

Reflecting on her remarks, Ms Ritchie recognised unionist objections as “sincerely held”.

“On reflection, the valid point I wanted to make at the Ulster GAA community conference was about the GAA being generally more open to engagement with others than the loyal orders have traditionally been (e.g. residents groups etc).

“However, I accept that is not how it came out,” she added.

Ms Ritchie also signified her intention to meet senior representatives of the Loyal Orders in the days ahead, and was hopeful of a “constructive and purposeful dialogue”.

While welcoming the admission by Ms Ritchie of her objectionable comments, one of the signatories of the letter, DUP MLA Edwin Poots expressed hope the SDLP woman would yet issue “a more unreserved apology”.

“Margaret Ritchie’s comments were extremely unfair and there was a genuine risk that they could have allowed some misguided people to believe that it is in some way alright to attack Orange Halls,” he said.

“As far as the DUP is concerned, this cross-party Unionist co-operation in defence of our culture sends out a powerful message that we are not going to allow the Orange Institution to be used as some sort of a punch-bag by politicians looking to make headlines.”