A man was cleared today of murdering Robert McCartney, who was beaten and stabbed to death outside a Belfast bar in an attack blamed on IRA members.

TWO men tried to blackmail a member of the British royal family with an audio recording featuring claims he had performed a gay sex act on an employee, a court was told yesterday.

MANY issues of a civil, ethical and religious kind flow from the decision of the High Court to grant the Coombe Hospital the right to enforce a Jehovah’s Witness woman to receive a blood transfusion against her will.

Saddam Hussein’s trial was delayed today after the ousted president refused to attend the session, court officials said.

A WOMAN testified yesterday from behind a screen that she was stripped and tortured with beatings and electric shocks by Saddam Hussein’s agents in the trial of the former president and seven lieutenants.

A POTENTIAL key witness in the Omagh bombing investigation cannot be forced to agree to be questioned by police in the North, the Gardaí said yesterday in response to claims of a rift between the two forces over the man’s availability for questioning.

The murder conviction of a former member of the Ulster Defence Regiment was today referred back to the Court of Appeal in the North for a third time.