Republican News · Thursday 1 November 2001

British soldier kills Catholic man

The killing of 27-year-old Colin Foy by a member of the British Army's notoriously sectarian RIR, formerly the UDR, has renewed calls for the RIR to be disbanded.

The killing happened in the Tyrone town of Fivemiletown on Sunday night just before midnight. The man had been drinking in the bar of the Four Ways Hotel with his brother when RIR soldier Glen Strong shot him at point blank range with his legally held weapon. Witnesses say that there was no trouble between the men in the run up to the shooting.

After the killing, Strong took a taxi to the nearby RUC barracks in Clogher where he gave himself up to the RUC. Reports say that in the aftermath of the shooting Strong said he had, "just shot a Taig".

Speaking to An Phoblacht, Sinn Féin MP for the area Michelle Gildernew said the killing was sectarian. "This young man was shot for no reason other than his religion." She said the shooting highlightd the amount of legally held weapons that are in unionist hands, an issue that has never been addressed.

Gildernew placed responsibility on the British government for its arming of loyalists. She pointed out that at present there are over 100,000 legally held weapons in the hands of unionists, an issue ignored by the British: "The RUC and RIR have acted as the armed wing of a sectarian state. Individually, their members have carried out sectarian killings on behalf of loyalist death squads. Collectively, as members of the RUC and RIR, they have engaged in sectarian killings, cover ups and intelligence gathering for loyalist death squads".

Colin Foy, who lived on Mullaghfad Road near Fivemiletwon, was buried on Wednesday 31 October.

Meanwhile a former UDA prisoner was shot dead in Strabane, County Tyrone. Charles Folliard (30) was shot dead on Monday night, 29 October, as he left his 16-year-old girlfriend's home on the mainly nationalist Ballycolman estate in Strabane.

Folliard, who was from nearby Douglas Bridge, had served seven years for his involvement in an attempt to kill a Catholic workmate in a quarry where he worked in 1990. The so-called Continuity IRA are being blamed for the shooting.

A third man killed this week, Peter McNally, was shot dead in what is believed to be a criminal-related killing in Craigavon, North Armagh, in the early hours of Monday morning, 29 October.

McNally had been on the run from prison for over a year.