I.R.A. terrorists murder hard-line Protestant M.P.

Press, 16 November 1981, Page 8

I.R.A. terrorists murder hard-line Protestant M.P.

NZPA Belfast Three masked Irish Republican Army guerrillas shoved past 60 horrified teenagers at a dance on Saturday night and fatally shot the Rev. Robert Bradford, a hard-line Protestant member of the British Parliament. The gunmen also killed a caretaker at the door as they fled. Witnesses told the police that two of the killers wore Halloween masks and the third had a white handkerchief over his facd in the attack at the Finaghy Community Centre on the outskirts'of Belfast. All three wore workmen’s overalls, witnesses said.

Screaming and crying youngsters scrambled for cover under tables, and one hurled a chair at the fleeing gunmen, who fired six bullets into Mr Bradford and three into the caretaker. None of the youths were hurt, but witnesses said some were taken to nearby homes and treated for shock.

The police accused the guerrillas of trying to provoke "virtual civil war,” and the British Prime Minister (Mrs Margaret Thatcher) vowed “to cleanse our country of the evil of terrorism.” In another incident, the police said a 19-year-old man was critically wounded earlier on Saturday by a lone gunman who shot him when he answered a knock at the front door of his home in a solidly Protestant district of north Belfast. The gunman escaped in a car, the police said. The Bradford assassination — the first of an Ulster member of Parliament and second by Irish nationalists of a member of the British Parliament — came hours after the Irish Republican Army exploded two bombs at the London home of Britain’s Attorney-General (Sir Michael Havers) and set off a bomb in Londonderry that wounded a soldier and a woman bystander.

Sir Michael and his wife were in Spain for a confer-

ence. No-one else was home at the time of the explosion, which caused heavy damage. Mr Bradford was the first member of- Parliament assassinated by the I.R.A. since Airey Neave, the Conservative Party’s spokesman on Northern Ireland, was killed in a car-bombing outside the House of Commons in March, 1979.

- Mr Bradford was a fierce critic of the I.R.A. and close friend of the militant Protestant leader, the Rev. lan Paisley. Mr Bradford, Mr Paisley, and other Protestant politicians were planning a tour of the United States next year to counteract I.R.A. propaganda. Mr Paisley called the killing “diabolical.”

The I.R.A. issued a statement claiming “responsibility for the execution” of Mr Bradford, calling him “one of the key people responsible for winding up the Loyalist paramilitary sectarian machine in the North.”

Mr Bradford, who was 40, was minister at the Suffolk Methodist Church near Belfast. He had been an I.R.A. critic since his election to Parliament in 1974 as a member of the Protestant Official Unionist Party. He advocated hanging convicted terrorists and favoured using Britain’s Special Air Service troops against the I.R.A.

Nora Bradford, aged 33, told reporters gunmen had tried to kill her husband “several times before” but he refused to give up his work “just for them.” Of the killers, she said, “The Lord will deal with them in his own good time.”

The Irish Prime Minister (Dr Garret Fitzgerald)- said the killing caused him “horror and revulsion” and called it a “brutal crime which will revolt all people in this island.” Sir Michael Havers returned to Britain yesterday after the bombing of his London home and warned the 1.R.A.: “You can’t frighten me.” Sir Michael, who had been at a legal conference in Madrid, said that two bombs exploded against the back wall of his empty house in Wimbledon.

He said of the 1.R.A., which claimed responsibility: “If they think they can frighten me, or my family, or the Government, they are wrong.

“My determination is as good and as strong as it ever wasin fact, even stronger.” Sir Michael said, however, that he thought there would have to be a review of security precautions for terrorist targets.

A policewoman, Sheila Halbert, aged 22, who was on duty in the grounds of Sir Michael’s home, was treated for shock after the blast. Commander Mike Richards, of Scotland Yard’s antiterrorist squad, said when asked why the explosives appeared to have been planted easily: “That is ■ a matter for some inquiry.”

“The house would not be difficult to observe,” Sir Michael said. “There were electronic devices outside of the house and they are switched on all the time, but whether they failed to work I do not know.” The house had a round-the-clock police guard and the road was always kept clear of cars for about 50m either side of the building.