Gelignite in paint tin

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32774, 26 November 1971, Page 9

Gelignite in paint tin

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright)

BELFAST, November 25. A booby-trapped tin of paint exploded soon after it was bought in Belfast yesterday, bringing fears that a new weapon has appeared- in the terror campaign in Northern Ireland.

The tin was one of two bought by a man from a market stall in Belfast. When he opened it at home it exploded; experts later found that it contained a fused halfplug of gelignite.

Fortunately for the man, a father of three, only the fuse detonated. Police have refused to name the purchaser, who they said would have been

killed if the gelignite itself I had exploded. The other tin bought by the man contained only paint. ARMY REINFORCEMENT Soldiers of the Scots Guards were shot at on four separate occasions in the Roman Catholic Springfield Road area of Belfast yesterday.

They returned three shots at a gunman hiding in a shop doorway, but he was believed to have escaped unhurt. It was announced last night that 650 officers and men of the 22nd Light Air Defence Regiment, Royal Artillery, at present in West Germany, will be sent to Londonderry for a four months tour o’f duty.

British soldiers held 13 persons for questioning after a four-hour screening operation at flats and houses in the Roman Catholic New Lodge area of Belfast.

The Army said that two of the 13 were suspected extremists of the Irish Republican Army. “These two have been wanted for some time,” said an Army spokesman. More than 100 people were interrogated in the screening process, which began before dawn. M.P. FINED £5O In Dublin a High Court has awarded £5O damages to a Dublin policeman who said that he had been libelled in an Irish television programme by Miss Bernadette Devlin, an Independent member of Parliament from Ulster and a civil-rights campaigner. The policeman, Garda Patrick Moriarty, said that Miss Devlin had accused him of kicking and striking her at an anti-apartheid demonstration during the tour of the Springboks Rugby team. Miss Devlin denied this but admitted that she had spoken of a police constable, identified only by number, as hav'ing kicked and struck her.