Paramilitary activity widespread, says Orde

LOYALIST and republican paramilitaries carried out more than 100 punishment beatings and shootings in the last year, the North’s Chief Constable Hugh Orde claimed yesterday.

Even though the republican terrorist organisation is supposed to be on ceasefire, the chief constable told a policing board meeting in Belfast they were matching loyalists levels of brutality.

“I have attributed over 50 punishment beatings and shootings to the UDA and I would probably put a similar number of these on the provisional IRA.”

Mr Orde’s assessment came amid continued unionist anger over the alleged abduction of dissident republican Bobby Tohill from a Belfast city centre bar.

The thwarted kidnapping was blamed on the Provos by Mr Orde and led to David Trimble leading his Ulster Unionist Party out of the talks, aimed at restoring devolved government, when no sanctions were taken against Sinn Féin.

The chief constable stood by his verdict yesterday and also hit out at the IRA gangs striking fear into their communities.

“Their victims are simply too terrified to co-operate with the police,” Mr Orde said.

Both loyalists and republicans have broken rules laid down by the British and Irish Governments in an attempt to end paramilitary activity, Mr Orde said. A joint declaration issued by London and Dublin last year urged all organisations to end punishment attacks, targeting, training and buying weapons.

Meanwhile, an arms seizure in north Belfast has ignited fears of a deadly feud between rival republican terrorists.

IRA men are believed to have targeted INLA drug dealers blamed for torturing teenagers in the Ardoyne district who later committed suicide.

The seizure was made on February 17, days after two Ardoyne friends, Bernard Cairns and Anthony O’Neill, took their own lives.

The death of the pair, both aged 18, brought to 13 the number of young men who have taken their own lives across north Belfast this year.

Mr Orde said: “We have some sort of fall-out between paramilitary organisations on the republican side.

“The INLA is certainly one of them and that obviously causes us some concern.”