Police to use DNA tests to track down sectarian killers

ADVANCED forensic tests are being used as part of a massive new inquiry into more than 20 loyalist and republican murders.

A team of detectives has been established to re-examine unsolved killings going back nearly a decade. DNA analysis is being applied to items recovered from the murder scenes in the Newtownabbey area, outside Belfast. Detective Inspector James Templeton said the initiative was his number one priority: “We have to keep trying because if you only turn up one piece of gold 10 years on it’s worth it.”

A total of 24 high-profile murders, nearly all sectarian, will be examined by the seven-strong team. They include the 1997 killing of Raymond McCord, 22, whose head was smashed in by a concrete block at Ballyduff Quarry. Although a Protestant, the Ulster Volunteer Force has been blamed for killing him in a loyalist dispute.