Policeman shot in N. Ireland

Press, 29 May 1981, Page 8

Policeman shot in N. Ireland

An off-duty policeman was shot and killed as he was getting into his car in Northern Ireland yesterday. The police said he was fired at from a nearby car, and hit several times in the body. The killing happened at Whitecross, near Newry, not far from the south Armagh border with the Republic of Ireland.

In Belfast leading republicans said Irish Republican Army prisoners in the Maze Prison would announce today the name of a new hunger striker to take over from Brendan McLaughlin. McLaughlin told doctors yesterday that he was calling off his fast after just two weeks without food. He had been in hospital for the last week, suffering from internal bleeding and a perforated ulcer.

McLaughlin, aged 29, joined the hunger strike for political status after Francis Hughes died.

In what the 8.8. C. has called an “unforgiveable error” the names of four British soldiers killed in Northern Ireland last week have been read out by a disc jockey, Ed Stewart, on his Radio 2 request programme. The names were on an

internal staff memo, and Mr Stewart accidentally read them out yesterday as part of a Northern Ireland request segment in his twohour programme. “Then he played a recording of ‘The Londonderry Air’,” a 8.8. C. spokesman said.

Mr Stewart realised his mistake almost immediately and later made two formal apologies on air. In . Belfast, the police raided the headquarters of the Protestant para-military Ulster Defence Association and seized arms and ammunition, including six homebuilt Sterling sub-machine guns.

The raid followed the capture of a Soviet RPG7 rocket launcher from I.R.A. guerrillas on the opposite side of Belfast hours earlier.

The Royal Ulster Constabulary has come under sharp criticism from Catholics for directing most of its attention at the Catholic community. Critics have called for a more even-handed policy in combating Ulster’s violent men.

The U.D.A. which claims 15,000 active members, is a legal organisation but its members are not allowed to keep arms.