Allied Irish shareholder thrown out of meeting

The Allied Irish Banks' shareholder Niall Murphy was thrown out of today's AGM after he confronted management about the £486m (€762.4m) fraud at its US subsidiary.

Murphy who had stepped up to the podium to challenge AIB chairman Lochlann Quinn and chief executive Michael Buckley over the Allfirst scandal, was led away by security staff.

Shocked shareholders shouted 'No!' and 'Bully!' as he was taken from the auditorium at the Culloden Hotel in Holywood, County Down.

Mr Murphy was later allowed back after promising not to approach the platform again.

"It is appalling. It is shocking that a person who has spent months studying the report of the fraud and has prepared 15 minutes of comments and questions should be treated like this.

"They were afraid of my questions."

Earlier, in his first speech to the shareholders, Mr Quinn apologised for the massive fraud, which was detected in February.

John Rusnak, the trader at the centre of the scandal at the Baltimore-based subsidiary, is currently the subject of an FBI investigation.

An independent report carried out by US financial expert Gene Ludwig, released in March, concluded that the fraud carried out by Mr Rusnak was "carefully planned and meticulously implemented".

The report said that it had involved the falsification of key bank records and the use of a computer to corrupt the information flow.