Police Know the Name of Nelson Bomber Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit source - Eric Hayes Patkowski Sunday Times 13 June 99 Police know the name of Nelson bomber by Liam Clarke POLICE believe they have identified the bomber behind the murders of Rosemary Nelson and Elizabeth O'Neill, and other attacks carried out by dissident loyalists. The man, who is 41 and lives in Co Down, is paid for each bomb he makes and insists on picking the targets. His name emerged early in the inquiry into Nelson's murder. Although there is strong intelligence information against him, it has so far been impossible to bring charges. O'Neill, 59, a mother of two, was killed last weekend by a device which was thrown through her window in the Corcrain estate, a loyalist area of Portadown. A Protestant married to a Catholic, she is thought to have died when she lifted the device in an attempt to throw it out of the window. According to loyalist sources, the bomb-maker involved in the attack is a former member of the Red Hand Commando, a semi-autonomous group which operates under the umbrella of the UVF. He has since broken from the group because he does not agree with the loyalist ceasefires. As well as manipulating dissident loyalist groups, he controls a network of drug dealers from his base in the Ballygowan area. He was responsible for making many of the loyalist bombs used in the late 1970s and 1980s. He now works closely with two brothers, originally from east Belfast, who have been trusted associates since they planted many of the UVF and Red Hand Commando bombs he made in the 1980s. Loyalists say that he charges between #200 and #500 for each bomb and hands them over as sealed units, refusing to show the loyalist dissidents how they are manufactured. He also keeps his supply of high explosives a secret from them. Groups he supplies include the Red Hand Defenders and the Orange Volunteers, who have an overlapping membership and are led by religious zealots with little paramilitary background. They have gained knowledge of bomb-making on the Internet and through manuals bought by mail order from America. Their reliance on such sources, together with their lack of access to effective explosives or the chemicals specified on the Internet "recipes", is said to explain the low success rate of their attacks. The devices made by the dissidents contain only "low order explosives", usually black powder taken from fireworks or shotgun cartridges. There have been several instances where nationalists have thrown away or ignored such "internet" pipe bombs when they were thrown at their premises by loyalists. This may have explained why O'Neill felt able to handle the more sophisticated device that killed her. The bomb-maker insists on approving targets before he releases his devices. Loyalist sources believe he was told that the pipe bomb which killed O'Neill was intended for a well-known mid-Ulster republican. He came to prominence as a protege of Frankie Curry, a former Red Hand Commando activist and a leading figure in the Loyalist Volunteer Force until he was murdered shortly after Nelson's death in March. Loyalist sources say Curry was shot dead by former Red Hand Commando colleagues after he insulted two senior loyalists, who asked him to cut his links with dissidents. Both Curry and the bomber were supporters of Billy Wright, the terrorist known as King Rat, who left to form the LVF and who was murdered in the Maze prison by the INLA last year. Eric Hayes Patkowski ehp@irsm.org P.O. Box 151805, Austin, Texas 78715-1805 http://irsm.org/ (Pairti Poblachtach Soisialach na h-Eireann) http://www14.pair.com/jcs/ (James Connolly Society) Co-Editor, Working Stiff Journal ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytire-06.16.99-03:55:56-20176