Friends tell of Stone's crippling illness
Michael Stone is suffering from crippling arthritis and was on medication when he launched his attack at Stormont, friends claimed today.
“The man could hardly walk, and how he made it that far in his condition is beyond me,” said one. “He has been an ill man and for a long time.
“The medication might have something to do with his mental state, but I wouldn’t write this off as the actions of a crackpot. Michael hasn’t been well and is maybe a bit confused. But he’s certainly no nutter.”
Television cameras caught him attacking the IRA funerals of two men and a woman shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar, when he killed three mourners who chased him through Milltown Cemetery in March 1988. And he knew the cameras would be there again today when he staged another solo-run at Parliament Buildings, Belfast.
Stone was given a 684-year sentence in 1989 for six murders and five attempted murders, but was set free along with hundreds of other loyalist and republican prisoners as part of the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement.
Apart from the attack at Milltown, as one of the UDA’s most feared gunmen who once stalked Sinn Féin’s chief negotiator Martin McGuinness in Derry, he was convicted of a number of other murders of Catholics.
Once a free man again, he embraced the IRA and loyalist ceasefires – and the developing peace process – but refused to apologise for his past. He once declared: “If I was to say sorry, I believe it would fall on deaf ears. Those operations were military operations. I do not regret any fatalities that have occurred.”
A womaniser, he has nine children from two failed marriages, and at least three grandchildren. At the time of Milltown, his status among loyalists was almost iconic. But since his release, his standing has dropped.
Once feted and lauded everywhere he went, Stone, with his trademark ponytail of greying hair, became more and more isolated as loyalist paramilitarism, which became a virtual by-word for organised crime and thuggery, imploded.
Friends and enemies were either killed off by rivals as part of bitter power struggles, sent to jail, or like the infamous Johnny “Mad Dog” Adair were forced to flee the North.
The two were inseparable at one time, particularly while they were in jail together. But with Adair now exiled in Scotland, they now loathe each other with a passion, according to loyalists in Belfast.
Stone turned his hand to painting and has sold some of his work for up to £10,000 (€14,761) a time. He also made money from an autobiography which detailed his life as a loyalist hitman.
He spent time between London where he had a studio, Spain and north Belfast, where he lived alone in a flat in the working class Rathcoole estate. But he also had a string of affairs and with a High Court legal action threatened over his memoirs, Stone, who is teetotal and anti-drugs, had little left in the bank.
Because of his physical state, he was in receipt of disability living allowance.
Even though the IRA is on ceasefire, Stone told friends he feared they would still try to kill him in revenge for Milltown – using a gun he lost in the cemetery as he ran for his life.
He later confirmed that it was Gerry Adams and McGuinness who were his original intended targets that day.
Armed with seven grenades, a pistol and a box of ammunition he had planned to strike inside St Agnes Church, Andersonstown, during a Requiem Mass for the three IRA members.
“I wanted to pull a grenade out and blast the two of them to smithereens,” he later wrote. But he abandoned the plan after watching a weeping sister of one of the three.
“I saw her grief and felt sad for her. The blonde girl saved Adams’ and McGuinness’ lives.”
Failure to go through with the attack inside the church was a source of considerable regret which never left him, according to associates. One of the few loyalists he has any respect for was a north Belfast UDA man who attempted to kill Adams in 1984.
John “Grug” Gregg who carried a tattoo of the Grim Reaper on his back, wounded the Sinn Féin president when he opened fire on a car near the centre of Belfast.
Gregg was out of jail within 10 years, but was himself gunned down by Adair associates in February 2003.
Police in Belfast questioned Stone a number of times since his release, once in recent months about the discovery of an arms cache, and he believed detectives were building a case to have him charged and sent back to jail because of alleged self-incriminating evidence.
His worsening physical state however left him in constant pain.
One associate said: “A lot of people are at sixes and sevens where this (peace) process is going, especially within the loyalist community. They are being pulled all over the place and Michael Stone behaving in this way really doesn’t surprise me.
“Until he is charged, or certified, we won’t know. His standing may not be what it once was, but many people still regard him as a loyalist icon. Alright, he may be confused and not thinking straight, but the Michael Stone of a few years ago would have gone in there (Stormont), or waited in the car park outside and taken a couple of them politicians out.
“He would have been in severe pain, and I mean serious pain because of the arthritis. He is in a really bad way.”
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