Top republican free as co-accused faces death in jail

A HIGH-PROFILE republican has walked free from a court in the North after being cleared of murdering two British soldiers.

However, his co-accused, a terminally ill dissident republican, will spend his final years in prison after being convicted.

Cystic fibrosis sufferer Brian Shivers, aged 46, was handed a life sentence after a judge found him guilty of being part of the gang that gunned down Patrick Azimkar, aged 21 and Mark Quinsey, aged 23, outside Massereene army barracks in Co Antrim in March 2009 as they collected pizza.

Just months earlier, unemployed divorcee Shivers, from Magherafelt, Co Derry, was told by a doctor that he had only three or four years to live.

His co-accused, Colin Duffy, from Lurgan, Co Armagh, was acquitted in the non-jury trial at Antrim Crown Court.

It was the third time in two decades that 44-year-old Duffy has walked free after being charged with murdering British security force members. He was first acquitted of an IRA murder 20 years ago when senior nationalist political figures on both sides of the border rallied to his defence.

While he declared his innocence at the time, he has been widely seen as a top Provisional IRA man, who left the organisation after it ended violence and cut ties with the Sinn Féin leadership of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, who embraced the peace process.

Duffy left the dock a free man after being cleared — though the judge said DNA evidence found on a glove linked him to the getaway car.

He was loathed by loyalist paramilitaries who once tried to kill him, hated by Protestants in north Armagh and detested by unionist politicians.

“Many people were scared of him,” said one source familiar with the top republican. “He would still be seen as a powerful figure today.”

There were nasty scenes outside the court as the republican emerged, with loyalist demonstrators hurling abuse at him and his supporters as he was driven away in a waiting car.

Relatives of the two soldiers wept in court as he was cleared. After the verdicts, Quinsey’s sister Jaime said they had got a measure of justice.