Republican News · Thursday 24 January 2002

Flag of convenience threat

Within hours of the Red Hand Defenders statement saying they were standing down, the RUC/PSNI warned two men from the nationalist Markets area in South Belfast they were under a death threat from the RHD.

The revelation came last Wednesday 16 January, when Sinn Féin Assembly member Alex Maskey disclosed that the RUC/PSNI visited two Catholic men at their work at Eglantine Avenue in South Belfast to warn them they were under threat of death threat.

Maskey rubbished the claim that it was the RHD behind the threat saying, "it was more a case of the UDA from South Belfast masquerading under the guise of the Red Hand Defenders, as it has done for many months previously, in a vain attempt to cover up its role in the ongoing sectarian pogrom across the north".