From feared assassin to lonely laughing stock

HE WAS once a loyalist figurehead who lorded it around the streets of Belfast, rarely having to put his hand in his pocket.But yesterday Michael Stone returned to jail a broken man and a laughing stock.Hardly any of his old associates were in the city's Crown Court to watch the killer, who suffers from crippling arthritis, limp from the dock after his guilty verdict was delivered.And as the notorious paramilitary prepared to resume a life behind bars, a former friend branded him a loner who had become more obsessed with the limelight than loyalism.It was the 53-year-old's yearning for attention that was the real motivation for his crackpot bid to storm Parliament Buildings, Stormont, two years ago while the Northern Ireland Assembly was in session, according to an ex-prisoner who once shared the same wing at the Maze Jail."Even in prison we always wondered what was bigger for Michael, his ego or the cause," he said.Stone achieved instant notoriety after murdering three people at Milltown Cemetery in west Belfast in 1988 when he launched a gun and grenade attack on mourners at the funerals of three IRA volunteers shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar.It was a incident that formed part of one of the darkest chapters of the entire Troubles, propelling a previously low-key paramilitary with long hair, dark features and manic eyes on to the front pages and TV screen.Suddenly he was the toast of every loyalist drinking den.Then, three days later, at the funeral of one of Stone's victims, two British Army corporals who inadvertently drove into the cortege were dragged from their car, beaten and shot dead. Murals depicting the UDA man's actions at Milltown soon appeared on gable walls in Protestant estates and the bullet-proof vest he wore was apparently sold for £10,000 (€11,656) at auction in a loyalist club in Scotland.Like at Stormont, his target that day had been Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. Republicans chased and eventually grabbed him as he retreated towards the nearby M1 motorway, but police pulled him free.It later emerged that this was not his first mission to kill.He owned up to a string of others as well, although his admissions to at least three have been questioned. It has been claimed that he was prepared to take the rap for other killers who were never held to account.He was sentenced to almost 700 years and sent to the Maze on the outskirts of Lisburn, Co Antrim, where his closest pals included another loyalist paramilitary boss, Johnny "Mad Dog'' Adair.Despite Stone's antics at Stormont and his bizarre attempt to defend it as an act of performance art, old associates said he would always be revered in loyalist circles for what happened at Milltown."People within loyalism were disappointed, shocked even, by what Michael did at Stormont. They did not want to go back to those days," he said."But saying all that, he will always be held in high esteem within certain loyalist circles."- David Young Download our iPhone App Now