Report: UVF members considering buying guns

Members of a major loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland are considering buying guns only months after they were supposed to have disarmed, it emerged today.

Members of a major loyalist paramilitary group in the North are considering buying guns only months after they were supposed to have disarmed, it emerged today.

A watchdog group blamed the leadership of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) for sanctioning the murder of a former supporter and for allowing members to gather intelligence on dissident republicans.

The Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) also said UVF elements had discussed buying weapons, and while the move may not be part of a wider plan, it advised government to watch closely for breaches in the group’s ceasefire.

The findings of the 25th IMC report on paramilitary activity in the North were overshadowed by the announcement today that the watchdog is to be shut down by the British and Irish governments six years after they set it up to bolster confidence in the peace process.

The UVF was among the main paramilitary groups that announced ceasefires in the mid-1990s. In May 2007 it issued a statement renouncing violence and committing itself to becoming a civilian organisation. And in September 2009 it was announced that the group had decommissioned its weapons.

But the IMC today repeated its belief that UVF leaders earlier this year sanctioned the murder of former loyalist prisoner Bobby Moffett, who was shot dead in front of stunned shoppers on Belfast’s Shankill Road.

His death was linked to internal loyalist tensions, but the IMC revealed the UVF was also gathering intelligence on republican dissidents who, unlike the mainstream Provisional IRA, remain actively involved in violence.

The IMC report considered paramilitary activity over the last six months.

It said of the UVF: “During the period under review we believe that there has been some gathering of intelligence about people believed to be dissident republicans and that this has been with the sanction of the leadership.

“Some members have discussed the acquisition of weapons, though this is without sanction and not part of any plan.”

The IMC blamed the UVF for a number of so-called punishment attacks and the targeting of foreign nationals in Belfast with hoax bombs.

The UVF has also been linked to rioting.

The report said that the UVF leadership was trying to “reduce the involvement of UVF members in crime, especially drug dealing”.

But the IMC added: “Nevertheless some remain involved in a range of offences including drugs, robbery, the sale of counterfeit goods, intimidation and extortion.”

The illegal funds, it said, were for use by individuals rather than for the paramilitary organisation.

The fall out from the Bobby Moffett murder sparked the resignation of the then leader of the UVF-linked Progressive Unionist Party, Dawn Purvis, who was its only elected representative in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

The IMC said the onus was now on the UVF to fulfil its pledges to follow a purely peaceful path.

But IMC commissioner Lord Alderdice said that while the UVF remained an illegal organisation, legislation designed to deter terrorist activity by imposing further sanctions on paramilitary groups seemed ill-equipped to prevent “gangsterism”.

The IMC report said: “The legislation predates the establishment of the IMC and contains complex legal stipulations, amongst them the judgment of when criminal activity, including gangster-type killings, become terrorism.

“The UVF has clearly been involved in serious criminal activity and the issue of its re-specification must be kept under close legally informed consideration.”