Johnny Adair disowned by UDA
Feared loyalist chief Johnny “Mad Dog” Adair has been dumped by the leadership of the paramilitary Ulster Defence Association, it was claimed tonight.
The organisation said: “He is no longer acceptable in our organisation.”
A statement appeared to confirm growing suspicions of a major rift inside the largest of the Protestant terror groups following a shooting of a major drugs dealer and rival in Northern Ireland.
Adair, the UDA’s west Belfast commander, was accused tonight of acting as an “agent provocateur” between his organisation and the splinter Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF).
Stephen Warnock, 35, was shot dead at the wheel of his BMW in Newtownards, Co Down, earlier this month.
Later the UDA’s east Belfast commander Jim Gray was shot in the face in apparent reprisal attack, heightening fears of an all our shooting war between factions.
A UDA statement tonight insisted none of its members had any part in the Warnock shooting.
It added: “It has since come to light that certain people have been acting as agent provocateurs between the Ulster Defence Association and the Loyalist Volunteer Force to capitalise on these events for their own purpose.
“As a result of ongoing investigations the present brigadier of west Belfast is no longer acceptable in our organisation.”
Close associates of Adair insisted tonight however that he retained the full support of his men in west Belfast.
John White of the Ulster Political Research Group, and a close friend of the top UDA man said: “The statement is a complete surprise.
“The leadership of the UDA in west Belfast has a strategy for the future. That strategy has been endorsed by the west Belfast leadership and they will continue to adhere to that.
“The leader within west Belfast (Adair) has the full support of not only the leadership by rank and file membership.
The split within the UDA, which has been brewing for months, ended with the decision to expel Adair following a meeting in east Belfast.
Other commanders who sit on the organisation’s inner council have been angered by what they regarded as Adair’s attempts to seize overall control of the grouping.
He was sent back to jail two years ago at the height of a bloody loyalist feud which left seven men dead.
But since he returned to his base in West Belfast’s fiercely Protestant Lower Shankill Estate earlier this year fears have been growing that a new power struggle would erupt into open warfare.
He forged close links with the LVF in a move which infuriated other UDA brigadiers.
A joint UDA/LVF mural has since been daubed on a gable wall in the Lower Shankill, further distancing Adair from the other five commanders who sit on the organisation’s inner council.
The shooting of Warnock seemed to reopen festering wounds and Gray was hit in a reprisal attack which left his face badly injured.
The retaliation strike on Gray, a flamboyant blond-haired loyalist, intensified the split inside the UDA and left many of its members even more incensed with Adair’s antics.
