UDA to decommission arms

Details of the Ulster Defence Association’s decommissioning of weapons are expected to be revealed at a meeting today.

The North’s largest loyalist paramilitary grouping is understood to have completed decommissioning.

The UDA, responsible for some of the bloodiest atrocities during the conflict, has already put a small number of guns beyond use.

It has been engaging with the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD) for some time.

Last year the Commission said it was given assurances from the mainstream UDA’s five so-called “brigades” and the South East Antrim grouping that they would complete their decommissioning by the end of the IICD’s mandate next month.

The IICD report said it had met all the mainstream UDA’s “brigades” and was told there was no difference of opinion.

Last year Northern Ireland Secretary Shaun Woodward warned that legislation, which set a deadline of next month for the completion of decommissioning, would not be renewed.

A small quantity of weapons is understood to have been destroyed by the UDA last June.