UDA bid for stability as Adair successor named
With his wife Gina and tiny band of supporters exiled in Scotland, Ulster Defence Association men who defected from his power base in the Lower Shankill estate voted in his successor.
In a statement issued on Saturday night, the organisation also vowed to restore order in Protestant parts of the city following a violent feud which claimed four lives. It is understood the man who has taken over was one of Adair’s closest associates until he quit his C Company unit.
As Adair languished in Maghaberry Prison near Lisburn, Co Antrim, rival factions drove his family and mentor John White out of Northern Ireland. They were among a group of 25 who boarded a ferry early on Thursday bound for Ayr, Scotland. With Adair totally defeated in a turf war , UDA rank and file attempted to put on a united front. One loyalist source said: “There has been a huge sigh of relief on the Shankill Road.”
The paramilitary grouping claimed it was now prepared to work on a political and community level to return some degree of normality to the Shankill Road.
Meanwhile, 18 police officers were injured during serious rioting in the centre of Omagh early yesterday. Police revealed that up to 200 people were involved in the violence.
In other violence across the North, a man was injured in a gun attack on a house in Derry. In north Belfast, petrol bombs were thrown during the night during a confrontation between nationalist and loyalist youths.
Meanwhile, a young man was recovering in hospital after being shot four times in a paramilitary style attack in north Belfast.
