22.2.04
Sunday Life
Murder squads sent to wipe out UDA boss
--By Ciaran McGuigan
Former buds Adai (with the tough earring) and Spence
TWIN murder squads were last week sent out to kill north Belfast UDA crime boss, Jim Spence and three of his associates.
But the would-be killers - five men in total - were forced to abandon their twin attacks on Spence's north Belfast home and a Shankill Road bar, due to a nearby police patrol.
Sources say they were forced to dump guns and a grenade and flee, when a radio scanner picked up details of a nearby police patrol.
Cops swooped on the Grove Park and York Road areas of north Belfast, last Wednesday, after information from Sunday Life about the aborted attack, and the dumped weapons.
Sunday Life contacted police after receiving an anonymous warning that the live explosives had been abandoned.
Army bomb experts, acting on our tip-off, were able to make safe the primed hand grenade, dumped near the Grove Inn.
However, searches of the Grove Park were unable to uncover an assault rifle and a handgun, that sources say were dumped there.
A well-placed source told Sunday Life that the aborted attacks were being carried out by supporters of jailed terror boss, Johnny 'Mad Dog' Adair.
A war-of-words has recently erupted between former pals Adair and Spence - with the former Shankill UFF leader accusing Spence of being an informer.
But that verbal battle threatened to turn to bloodshed last Tuesday night, when two murder squads were set to launch attacks on Spence's Woodvale home, and on a Shankill Road bar used by three of his cohorts.
One car, carrying three people, was to be used to launch a gun and grenade attack on Spence's home.
A second team, made up of two men, was setting out to target a bar on the Shankill Road.
The targets of that attack were three men, including a convicted rapist, who now runs a number of brothels for the UDA, and a drug dealer who is a major dealer of Ecstasy, cocaine and cannabis, operating from a sheeben on the Shankill.
Spence and his three associates all refused to back Adair in the feud between his C Company and the rest of the UDA, causing the two lifelong pals to fall out
Murder squads sent to wipe out UDA boss
--By Ciaran McGuigan
Former buds Adai (with the tough earring) and Spence
TWIN murder squads were last week sent out to kill north Belfast UDA crime boss, Jim Spence and three of his associates.
But the would-be killers - five men in total - were forced to abandon their twin attacks on Spence's north Belfast home and a Shankill Road bar, due to a nearby police patrol.
Sources say they were forced to dump guns and a grenade and flee, when a radio scanner picked up details of a nearby police patrol.
Cops swooped on the Grove Park and York Road areas of north Belfast, last Wednesday, after information from Sunday Life about the aborted attack, and the dumped weapons.
Sunday Life contacted police after receiving an anonymous warning that the live explosives had been abandoned.
Army bomb experts, acting on our tip-off, were able to make safe the primed hand grenade, dumped near the Grove Inn.
However, searches of the Grove Park were unable to uncover an assault rifle and a handgun, that sources say were dumped there.
A well-placed source told Sunday Life that the aborted attacks were being carried out by supporters of jailed terror boss, Johnny 'Mad Dog' Adair.
A war-of-words has recently erupted between former pals Adair and Spence - with the former Shankill UFF leader accusing Spence of being an informer.
But that verbal battle threatened to turn to bloodshed last Tuesday night, when two murder squads were set to launch attacks on Spence's Woodvale home, and on a Shankill Road bar used by three of his cohorts.
One car, carrying three people, was to be used to launch a gun and grenade attack on Spence's home.
A second team, made up of two men, was setting out to target a bar on the Shankill Road.
The targets of that attack were three men, including a convicted rapist, who now runs a number of brothels for the UDA, and a drug dealer who is a major dealer of Ecstasy, cocaine and cannabis, operating from a sheeben on the Shankill.
Spence and his three associates all refused to back Adair in the feud between his C Company and the rest of the UDA, causing the two lifelong pals to fall out
