Three facing jail over plot to kill ‘Mad Dog’ Adair
THREE men have been found guilty of plotting to assassinate two prominent figures from Northern Ireland’s Loyalist paramilitary past.
Irishman Antoin Duffy, 39, his cousin Martin Hughes, 36, and Paul Sands, 32, had denied conspiring to kill former Ulster Defence Association (UDA) chief Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Adair and ally Sam McCrory.
But all three were convicted after a nine-week trial at the High Court in Glasgow, which heard how ringleader Duffy tried to obtain weapons and boasted of ‘trying to get a war started’.
Duffy and Hughes were also convicted of terrorism charges, while two other men, Craig Convery, 37, and Gordon Brown, 29, were convicted of organised crime charges linked to the distribution of drugs and guns across Scotland.
Armed officers swooped on Duffy at Glasgow’s Buchanan Galleries shopping mall in broad daylight while he was on home leave from open prison.
During searches of properties in and around Glasgow and Paisley, police found drugs and a number of weapons. Among them was a Kalashnikov-type rifle, stashed in a cupboard next to a vacuum cleaner and Christmas decorations.
The accused were among 12 arrests made in 2013 following joint MI5 and Police Scotland investigations. Eventually, seven men stood trial, although charges against two were later dropped.
Adair and his best f ri end McCrory were once senior members of the UDA and its paramilitary wing the Ulster Freedom Fighters.
They were involved in the Good Friday agreement in 1998 and both have been living in Ayrshire for a number of years.
The court heard that Duffy, from Donegal, held Adair and McCrory responsible for ordering the murders of dozens of innocent Catholics during the Troubles. Prosecutors described him as the driving force behind the plot and that he initially planned operations from Castle Huntly open prison and on home leave.
He enlisted Hughes and fellow prisoner Paul Sands – a Facebook friend of McCrory – who knew of the ex-UDA man’s daily routine.
However, MI5 had learned of their plans and bugged Duffy’s flat and Hughes’s car. Their evidence showed that Duffy wanted to shoot McCrory using a handgun and then target Adair using an AK47 assault rifle.
The trial heard a conversation in Hughes’ Mercedes Jeep, which travelled from Glasgow to the Ayrshire home of McCrory in 2013 to carry out a recce.
On the tape, Sands says: ‘There are so many places you could hit this guy. I could go and chap his door right now and we could probably put him in the boot if three of us could manage it.’
Duffy is then heard to say: ‘A sawn- off and a revolver as the back-up.’
Duffy’s cellmate i n Castle
‘A sawn-off and a revolver’
Huntly, Edward McVeigh, 27, told the trial that he claimed to be in the Real IRA and talked of shooting Adair as he walked his dog or trained at the gym.
The trial also heard that Duffy even approached Celtic player Anthony Stokes in a Glasgow pub in 2013, asking him to get his father to pass a message on to someone in Ireland to obtain weapons. Regulars threw Duffy out of the bar.
QC Derek Ogg, representing Duffy, said his client was a fantasist, not a terrorist, was addicted to the drug Tramadol and suffered from mental health issues.
Hughes’s QC, Gordon Jackson, said his client was just trying to keep his cousin happy by agreeing with him, while Sands was described as a ‘total idiot who wasn’t going to do anything’ by Donald Findlay, QC.
However, all three were convicted of conspiracy to murder.
Trial judge Lady Scott deferred sentence on all five men until next month.
Detective Superintendent Andy Gunn of Police Scotland said: ‘Duffy is a dangerous man. The streets of Scotland are safer now that he, Sands, Hughes, Brown and Conver y have been convicted.’