Solicitor advised UVF clients to ‘take out’ victim

A SOLICITOR secretly taped during meetings with paramilitary suspects tried to have a wounded taxi driver assassinated before he could speak to police, a court heard yesterday.

Manmohan “Johnny” Sandhu, 41, is accused of phoning an associate in an attempt to have Ulster Volunteer Force gun attack victim Jonathan Hillier “taken out” as he lay in the Ulster Hospital.

The lawyer also allegedly contacted a UVF boss in east Belfast and urged him to hide a man suspected of involvement in another murder carried out during a violent feud.