Former FAIT man charged with murder
A one-time leading spokesperson for anti-republican group FAIT
(Families Against Intimidation and Terror) has been charged with the
brutal murder of a 60-year-old man in Newry.
Damien McShane was one of two men who were charged on Tuesday, 30
March, with murdering Robert John McStravick, whose badly beaten body
was found in Newry Canal on Monday. It is understood that
McStravick's killers thought he was a Protestant and attacked him on
Friday 19 March. He was beaten to death in the Drumalane Park area of
Newry and then his body was weighted with concrete blocks before
being dumped in Newry Canal.
When charged, McShane said: ``I'm very sorry it happened.''
McShane rose to prominence in the early 1990s when, along with Nancy
Gracey, he was a spokesperson for FAIT. He made numerous media
appearances on behalf of two Newry criminals from Drumalane Park who
took refuge in the town's Cathedral after the IRA had ordered them to
leave the Six Counties.
The Chair of Newry and Mourne Council, Sinn Féin Councillor Brendan
Curran, said the murder was ``a despicable sectarian act which has
horrified all the people of Newry. Our party has spoken out
repeatedly against a gang of criminals from Drumalane Park and now
our worst fears appear to have been realised.''
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