Supergrass ‘scuppered’ plan to kill 19 Catholic workmen, court told

A former loyalist paramilitary-turned-supergrass has told a double murder trial that he “scuppered” a UVF plan to kill 19 Catholic men on a bus in 1994.

Gary Haggarty told Belfast Crown Court that the planned attack was one of three in retaliation after the INLA shot dead three members of the loyalist terror group in June 1994.

Haggarty was giving evidence for a second day during the trial of James Stewart Smyth, 57, of Forthriver Link in Belfast for the murders of Eamon Fox and Gary Convie.

Smyth is charged with two counts of murder, one count of attempted murder, possession of a firearm and membership of a proscribed organisation, the UVF.

He has denied the five charges.

Mr Convie and Mr Fox were sitting in a parked car at a building site when they were shot dead by a gunman standing in an adjacent playground beside North Queen Street in May 1994.

There was a heavy police presence at Laganside courts on Tuesday as Haggarty returned to the witness box.

The 51-year-old was handed a reduced prison sentence after admitting more than 500 terror crimes, including five murders, but he was released from prison in 2018 only four months into the six-and-a-half year term, for providing information about other terrorist suspects.

He had previously told the court that his role in the murders of Mr Fox and Mr Convie included tampering with fencing near the building site and moving guns.

He had also previously said he first joined the UVF in early 1991, and then worked as an informer for then police force the RUC’s special branch from 1993 to 2004.

Giving evidence on Tuesday, Haggarty told the court of a UVF plan to kill 19 Catholic workmen on a minibus in Rathcoole in June 1994 as retaliation for the shooting of three of its members.

He said he told his special branch handlers of the plan as soon as he became aware of it.

Haggarty said: “The police put a checkpoint in the area and scuppered that event.”

Earlier, Haggarty told the court that police had continued to employ him as a paid informant after he had been questioned over a number of murders.

Defence barrister Michael Borrelli KC put it to Haggarty that he had deceived police about the extent of his involvement in UVF activities.

Haggarty responded: “Police knew I was an active terrorist, by 1994 I had been arrested for four murders. I continued working for them for another 10 years.”

In relation to the murders of Mr Fox and Mr Convie, Haggarty told the court that he was surprised that two Catholic workmen were working on the building site in what was a predominantly Protestant area.

Mr Borrelli asked if he thought they were two republican targets.

Haggarty said he did not know that initially but was later told that by UVF commanders.

Asked how he discovered the two men were not republicans, he said: “I don’t think Tiger’s Bay UVF’s military commander and director of operations thought they were anything other than innocent Catholics.

“I think it was a front to say they were republicans.

“They were two innocent Catholic workmen. I think the leadership of the UVF knew that at that time.”

Mr Borrelli asked the witness if he would have been bothered if he had known it was two innocent Catholics.

Haggarty said the operation would have gone ahead but that it would have bothered him.

He added: “I was in no doubt in my mind someone was going to get shot that day – the bones of the operation, I knew nothing about.”

Haggarty also told the court that he had not seen Smyth fire the shots which killed Mr Fox and Mr Convie, but said he had spoken to Smyth after and “he told me of his involvement in it”.

Earlier, Mr Borrelli put it to Haggarty that he had been paid £58,000 for his years of work as a police informer.

Haggarty said he believed the total was substantially lower than that.

The hearing continues.