Flash: One dead after night of gun attacks

national | miscellaneous | news report Monday July 22, 2002 14:01 by McMean

A man was shot dead in north Belfast today in an attack claimed by the loyalist Red Hand Defenders. The victim, a Catholic man in his early 20s, was shot in the Flora Road area in what appeared to have been a drive-by shooting.

He was walking home alone when he was shot. The killing came
after a night of shootings in which two others were injured.

The shootings followed a series of loyalist attacks in north
Belfast over the weekend.

The attacks began earlier last night when a 19-year-old
Protestant man was shot in the groin as he stood in the loyalist
Glenbryn Park estate, close to the site of last year's loyalist
attacks at Holy Cross School in Ardoyne.

The circumstances of that shooting are also unclear. A
representative for Glenbryn residents claimed a gunman fired a
shot across the "peaceline", but this was refuted by local
republicans. There were some suggestions the incident in
Glenbryn may have been loyalist-inspired.

Shortly after that attack, there were at least three shootings on
Catholics, and one man was shot in the upper thigh in the
nationalist Oldpark area.

Sinn Fein councillor Eoin O'Broin described what happened: "Two
men came down the Oldpark Road on a motorbike and one got off,
but as he aimed the gun at a man outside Henry Joy McCracken's
pub, it jammed," he said.

"They then made off towards the Shankill and the man was taken to
hospital and treated for shock.

"Literally, within five or 10 minutes, we heard more shooting. It
appeared to be just round the corner off Rosapenna Street.

"We went around to see and there was a young man, he's in his
early 30s, lying on the ground with a gun wound to the upper
thigh or so. It seemed to be about eight to 10 shots that we
heard."

The man who died in the early hours of this morning has not yet
been named.