Over 2,000 quizzed on loyalist chief's murder

More than 2,000 people have been questioned about the murder of a loyalist paramilitary chief in Belfast a year ago, police said tonight.

With no one yet charged a year on from the death of John Gregg, 45, and associate Robert Carson, 33, in a hail of gunfire, police made a renewed appealed for more people to come forward.

Gregg, the Ulster Defence Association leader in south east Antrim, was ambushed in Belfast docks as he was driven away from a ferry in the back of a taxi.

The man who attempted to murder Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams in the 1980s and who was sentenced to 10 years’ jail for his failed attempt, was killed by his own.

He died in the heat of the battle between the mainstream UDA leadership and renegade Johnny “Mad Dog” Adair – a vicious fight which saw Adair returned to prison to serve out an earlier sentence for directing terrorism.

Among people arrested for questioning about the murder were members of Adair’s notorious UDA ‘C’ Company who fled under threat of death from their Shankill Road stronghold to Bolton, Greater Manchester.

Gregg was an ardent Rangers fan and his route from the Stena HHS fast ferry to his home in Belfast’s Rathcoole was well known to former associates, some of whom had become sworn enemies.

Almost a year on from his murder on February 1, 2003 police today made a fresh appeal for information.

Detective Chief Inspector Stephen Maxwell said that despite interviewing some 2,000 people “we feel that there are others who travelled on the HSS, arriving in Belfast at around 10pm on Saturday 1st of February last year and who have not yet come forward.

“We would urge those people to contact us.”

Gregg, Carson and two other men where in a red Toyota Carina taxi which was sprayed with gunfire from a passing vehicle at Nelson Street in Belfast docks area.