VIOLENCE IN NORTH IS LINKED TO DRUGS

The decapitation of an east Belfast man at the weekend marks the descent of
some loyalist paramilitaries into drug crime, writes Jim Cusack, Security
Editor

The grim discovery of George Legge's decapitated body in a country lane on
the eastern outskirts of Belfast on Saturday morning is only the latest in
a series of drug-related crimes that have shaken Protestant working-class
communities.

Parallel with the loyalist feud which erupted at the end of last Summer
there has been a series of violent incidents related to the drugs trade in
the North which is dominated by certain members of the Ulster Defence
Association and their associates in the Loyalist Volunteer Force. A week
before Christmas, James Rockett, a UDA man from north Belfast was found
beaten and shot to death on waste ground.

His pockets were stuffed with cash. It emerged later that Rockett had been
involved in cocaine, ecstasy and cannabis dealing but had become involved
in a dispute with other UDA drug dealers. He was planning to leave Belfast
and had cashed in the last of his drugs.

Over Christmas a young woman was mutilated and murdered in the Shankill area.

Police sources say this was drugs-related although the victim was not
involved in the drugs trade. The man suspected of killing her is said to be
a loyalist with an alcohol and cocaine addiction.

The latest of the recent victims, George Legge, was a former UDA assassin
from east Belfast who had become heavily involved in the drugs trade.

In April 1992 detectives questioned Legge about the murder of another UDA
man, Edward McCreery, who was killed as part of another crime-related
internal UDA dispute.

Detectives suspect Legge rec ently became involved in a dispute with other
UDA figures in east Belfast, again over drugs. His murder involved an
exceptional amount of violence.

There was so much damage to the body that an initial examination could not
determine whether he had been shot or stabbed.

His killers severed the head, an act which has resonances with the darkest
days of the loyalist assassination campaign in north Belfast in the 1970s.

Then, an Ulster Volunteer Force gang known as the Shankill Butchers
developed a habit of cutting Catholic victims' throats and, in one case,
severed a man's head.

According to loyalist sources, the recent violence flows from disputes
among UDA drug dealers and, in some instances, is being fuelled by drug use.

Sources also say that drug use, particularly by members of the UDA's lower
Shankill group, contributed significantly to the loyalist feud last year
which led to 12 deaths.

The lower Shankill C company of the UDA is said to be heavily involved in
the drugs trade. Some of its members are heavy drug users.

One figure, Stephen "Top Gun" McKeag, died last August from a drug overdose.

McKeag had been a heavy cocaine user and was also using synthetic heroin.

Another Shankill loyalist involved in the drugs trade, Frankie Curry, who
was shot dead by the UVF on St Patrick's Day 1999 was also addicted to
synthetic heroin, which is said to be widely available in some Protestant
working-class areas.

The RUC drugs squad has noted a significant increase in drug seizures in
recent years.

Heroin addiction is, for the first time in Northern Ireland, becoming a
significant problem in mainly Protestant housing estates in north Antrim
and north Co Down.