UDA boss murder trial begins in Belfast
A loyalist leader and 13 of his alleged associates are due in the dock today as one of the biggest paramilitary murder trials in decades begins in the North.
UVF commander Mark Haddock and his co-accused will face a litany of charges at Belfast Crown Court connected to the killing of rival loyalist leader Tommy English 10 years ago.
Police will be on high alert amid fears the trial could trigger unrest in loyalist communities, after a summer already blighted by violence in working class Protestant neighbourhoods.
There is simmering anger within loyalism that 42-year-old Haddock, a former police informant, and the other defendants will be tried on evidence based largely on the testimony of two of their original co-accused, brothers David and Robert Stewart from Newtownabbey, Co Antrim.
The self-confessed UVF members both turned Crown witnesses to gain a lesser sentence.
Supporters of the 14 accused have likened the case to the so-called ’supergrass’ trials in the 1980s, which saw both loyalist and republican paramilitaries jailed on the evidence of former colleagues who turned state’s evidence.
Banners denouncing ’supergrass’ trials were erected in loyalist areas in Belfast last week in a visible sign of the heightened tensions within sections of the community.
Special measures have already been introduced ahead of the non-jury trial, with witnesses and members of English’s family due to be kept in a secure room in a different building, linked to Court 12 in Laganside courthouse by videolink.
With many supporters of the 14 accused expected in court, a massive police presence will be deployed.
But the PSNI is also making plans in the event of trouble in potential flashpoints such as east and north Belfast and south-east Antrim.
Ulster Defence Association boss English, 40, was gunned down in front of his wife and children in his north Belfast home in October 2000.
He was one of a number of loyalist paramilitaries killed during a bloody feud between the UVF and UDA.
It is understood the trial could last up to three months.
In January 2007 Haddock’s role as a police special branch agent was outlined following the publication of an investigation by former police ombudsman Nuala O’Loan.
She found that police colluded with Haddock’s Mount Vernon UVF gang in north Belfast – a group that was behind more than a dozen murders in the area.
Ahead of the trial, Haddock had been on bail at an address outside the North due to concerns for his safety.
On his return to the region last week, he agreed to be placed in protective custody back in jail.
