SIX DIE IN UNEASY ULSTER ‘PEACE’

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32959, 4 July 1972, Page 13

SIX DIE IN UNEASY ULSTER ‘PEACE’

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BELFAST. Julv 3

Most of the barricades protecting Protestant “no-go" areas in Belfast came down today after a week-end of violence in which six people died, in spite of the cease-fire declared a week ago by the Provisional wing of the I.R.A.

Two of the dead were shot on Saturday; three more bodies were found yesterday afternoon.

| As the barricades were 'being pulled down, a Protestant was kidnapped in | the Shankill Road area while lout on parole from the city prison. Gusty Spence, aged 39. was serving a 20-year sentence for the killing of a young Roman Catholic barman six years ago; since then he has become something of a folk hero in Protestant circles. As he was driving to visit relatives, his car was stopped. and he was abducted. Later, a body was found in the Old Lodge area. The police would neither confirm nor deny that the body was that of Spence. Two of the men killed yesterday were Protestants, and the third, a Roman Catholic. A senior officer for the Protestant Ulster Defence Association denied that any of his men had been involved in the kidnapping of Spence, but he added that if the I.R.A. was involved, the U.D.A. would retaliate. As the first week-end

since the Provisionals' ceasefire was declared ended, the Army was involved in a battle with gunmen believed to belong to the I.R.A A senior I.R.A. officer in Belfast’s Roman Catholic

Ardoyne area admitted that his men had been involved in the battle, in which more than 300 rounds were fired at troops; he promised that there would be an inquiry into the incident.