Stone acted alone at Milltown, insists Stitt

A UDA boss has insisted that Michael Stone acted alone at Milltown Cemetery.

Sinn Fein MLA Mairtin O Muilleoir has claimed that Stone was assisted by the security forces when he launched a deadly attack on mourners at the funeral of the Gibraltar Three on March 16, 1988.

Speculation over collusion between the RUC and UDA to launch the attack centres on a white van which was seen parked on the motorway at the time.

But Dee Stitt (47) said Stone had no help, and in fact got the bus into Belfast before mingling with mourners on the walk to the cemetery. Stitt told the Belfast Telegraph that Stone had given him approval to speak about him on BBC documentary Funeral Murders earlier this week.

Yesterday, Stitt said he had appeared on the programme to give the loyalist perspective on Milltown.

“There was no collusion, he was a lone guy, he did it himself,” he said.

“He got a bus up there, an Ulsterbus into town, then got a red bus to the Lower Falls and walked among the rest of the people at the funeral. He just walked into it.

“He had no assistance, no help and that’s the way he did his business.”

Stitt said there was celebration

Thoughts: UDA boss Dee Stitt

within loyalism following Stone’s attack, particularly because it had come just months after the Enniskillen bombing.

“We as a community had Enniskillen, that’s the context, so when he (Stone) did that he was like a hero to us, he gave our community a lift and swelled the ranks of the UDA and UVF,” he added.

Stitt had spent four years alongside Stone at the Maze Prison.