High security for feud victim's funeral

Northern Ireland police mounted a major security operation in Belfast today as the funeral took place of the latest victim in the bitter internal loyalist feud.

Roadblocks were set up around the Donegall Road area and vehicles were stopped and searched while a private funeral service took place in the side street home of the victim’s parents.

Ulster Defence Association man Roy Green, 32, was shot dead outside a bar in South Belfast’s Ormeau Road last Thursday, the second victim of the feud in a matter of days.

Loyalist paramilitary chiefs said Green was executed for treason.

The UDA leadership said he’d been killed for acting as a double agent in their feud with terror chief Johnny “Mad Dog” Adair.

Adair and his close associate John White stayed away from the funeral.

Mr White said: “The family are under enough pressure and we felt it right in the circumstances not to go. The family has also been threatened by the UDA in South Belfast.”

There was a security alert around Adair’s West Belfast home today, and British army bomb experts took away the remains of an object which caused a small explosion in the back yard during the morning.

Police said it was not immediately clear whether the blast had been caused by a firework or a blast bomb.

There were no paramilitary trappings at the funeral and only a few dozen people gathered outside the Green family home. Several dozen more waited silently on the corner at the top of the street.

Yellow wreaths spelling out dad, brother and son adorned the hearse.

Convicted drug dealer Green was accused by the UDA leadership of passing on false information which led to an earlier murder in the bitter dispute, which security chiefs fear could yet blow up into a full war and more deaths.