NEWS & VIEWS
from a CATHOLIC perspective

      BELFAST (CWNews.com) - In Northern Ireland, a top Loyalist assassin was jailed for life today for the sectarian murder of Catholics.

      Gary Martin Quinn, 34, a self-confessed top gunman for the Loyalist Ulster Freedom Fighters, was given five life-terms for four sectarian killings and for plotting to murder other Catholics. As he was led from Belfast Crown Court, one man who survived being blasted by a shotgun by Quinn eleven years ago wished him "Happy Christmas," to which he replied "Thanks mate."

      Quinn, from Lisburn in County Antrim, confessed to the killings seven years to the day after he himself was shot in the head by an off-duty British soldier while on active service with the UFF. Lord Justice Nicholson said Quinn's five years with the loyalist terror group from "1985 to 1990 were the most important and exciting in his life." The judge told Quinn he was guilty of "sectarian murders of a vile and vicious nature" which were committed "largely or entirely for sectarian reasons." Quinn had targeted people because "they were Catholic or thought to be Catholics."

      Nicholson said Quinn had expressed remorse for only one of his victims, Loughlin Maginn, murdered in his Rathfriland home in August 1989. But the judge said Quinn's remorse was not because Maginn was a Catholic, "but because he was married to a Protestant." Quinn, said the judge, "apparently found this upsetting."