Shooting linked to drugs, police claim

The shooting of a top loyalist paramilitary in Belfast is linked to a fall-out over drugs, police claimed today.

Jim Gray, a senior member of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) is recovering in hospital after being hit in the face.

Police said loyalists were embroiled in a sordid internal war over their drugs and business interests.

Assistant Chief Constable Alan McQuillan claimed elements within the UDA were also continuing to stoke up sectarian tensions in north Belfast while at the same time infighting was taking place among criminal godfathers

Mr Gray was ambushed late last night near the home of a loyalist drugs dealer Stephen Warnock, 35, who was shot dead at the wheel of his BMW car in Newtownards, Co Down last Friday.

His funeral was taking place later today amid heightening fears that the shooting of Mr Gray could trigger a new outbreak of blood letting by rival Protestant paramilitaries.

Mr McQuillan said today: “I think there are two quite separate things going on here.

“Quite clearly within the last two weeks we have seen a series of tensions breaking out and shooting in relation to factions within loyalist groups.

Quite what the motive of that is I am still not clear but I think we have got to recognise that these are basically Mafia organisations.

“I think the most probable cause of that is quite frankly some sort of sordid drugs war, business interests war between individuals within those groups.

“That is happening on one side. On the other side in north Belfast we still have factions within the Ulster Defence Association, in particular, who are determined to carry on sectarian violence.”