06/06/2003

Police arrest man in connection with loyalist murder

Police have confirmed that a body found in a shallow grave near a rural road in Mallusk on the outskirts of north Belfast is that of missing 21-year-old loyalist Alan McCullough.

It is understood that a man has since been arrested in connection with the killing.

Mr McCullough went missing last week after apparently returning to Northern Ireland having received assurances that he would be safe following a bitter dispute between factions within the UDA feud that led to four murders earlier this year.

The feud centred on a power struggle between the mainstream UDA and its notorious ‘C’ Company that resulted in the expulsion of 'C' Company's commander Johnny Adair. A short time later Adair was returned to jail and those said to be loyal to the former UDA chief fled the country.

Alan McCullough was one of the exiled, but his mother said that before he returned to the province, he had been given assurances from the UDA that he would be safe.

However, sources indicated that the UDA was involved in the disappearance last week, and in a call to a Belfast newsroom, the murder was later claimed by the loyalist paramilitary group the Ulster Freedom Fighters.

The BBC reported that the caller, who used a recognised codeword, had linked the murder of Alan McCullough to that of John ‘Grugg’ Gregg and Jonathan Stewart.

(SP/MB)

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