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Date Posted: 16:51:52 12/28/08 Sun GMT
Author: Lynn
Subject: NImilitant Stone jailed for 16 years over Attack 9Bloomberg US)

Northern Ireland Militant Stone Jailed for 16 Years Over Attack

By Colm Heatley

Dec. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Pro-British militant Michael Stone, who gained infamy by killing mourners at a Catholic funeral in Northern Ireland in 1988, was sentenced to 16 years for trying to murder leaders of the republican Sinn Fein party in 2006.

Stone, 53, was found guilty last month on charges that also included possession of explosive devices, weapons and criminal damage.

A self-confessed killer released from prison in 2000 as part of a peace deal in Northern Ireland, Stone tried to enter Belfast’s power-sharing government building armed with explosives, knives and axes on Nov. 24, 2006, as rival political leaders tried to hammer out a peace deal inside. Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, Northern Ireland’s deputy first minister, were the intended victims of the attack.

Stone was jailed today at Belfast Crown Court by Judge Donal Deeny for the attempted murders of Adams and McGuinness, said a court official, who declined to be identified. The 16-year sentences will run concurrently.

When Stone was found guilty last month Deeny said the militant “stepped over a line by entering the building and igniting the bag which was a necessary part of his plan to kill the Sinn Fein leaders.”

Stone claimed he had been engaged in “performance art” and that the episode had been a “big joke” to hasten a deal between Northern Ireland’s politicians by reminding them of the U.K. region’s violent past. This argument was “unreliable and unconvincing,” according to the ruling.

Political Stability

Stone is one of the most infamous paramilitaries to emerge from Northern Ireland’s 25-year conflict, which claimed 3,500 lives between 1969 and 1994.

He joins a dwindling band of pro-British loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland’s jails as the region enjoys political stability as part of a peace deal brokered in 2007 that re-established power-sharing between the predominantly Catholic republican community and the mostly Protestant loyalists

At his trial, Stone compared himself to celebrated British artists Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin. “I am misunderstood,” he told the Belfast court.

To contact the reporter on this story: Colm Heatley in London at cheatley@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: December 8, 2008 08:57 EST

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