Michael Stone (loyalist) - Milltown Cemetery Attack

Milltown Cemetery Attack

Stone devised the idea for the Milltown attack after an IRA bomb killed eleven people attending a Remembrance Sunday service at the cenotaph in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh in 1987.

Intent on killing top republicans, including Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, Stone attacked the paramilitary funeral which was being held at the Milltown Cemetery for the three IRA members killed 10 days earlier in Gibraltar by the Special Air Service (SAS) in what was termed Operation Flavius. As Danny McCann, Seán Savage, and Mairéad Farrell were being buried, Stone launched a commando-style assault against the mourners with RGD-5 grenades and an semi-automatic pistol. He killed three people, including IRA member Kevin Brady, and injured sixty others. Stone was eventually overpowered by infuriated mourners, who began to beat him mercilessly, and was then arrested by members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). He still walks with a slight limp as a result of the dislocated thigh bone he received in the aftermath of the attack. The attack was caught on television cameras, and provided some of the most savage images of the conflict.

According to Ulster Defence Association (UDA) member Sammy Duddy, two UDA brigadiers from two Belfast battalions, fearing IRA reprisals against themselves or the areas they controlled, telephoned the IRA after the Milltown attack, denying knowledge of Stone or his intentions. The two brigadiers both claimed that Stone was a "rogue loyalist" acting without UDA sanction or authorisation. Duddy, however, described Stone as "one of the UDA's best operators".

Stone, who apparently objected to the newspapers' portrayal of him as a mad Rambo-style gunman, also confessed to shooting dead three other Catholics between 1984 and 1987. He claimed the victims were linked to the IRA, although it appears that they were unaligned civilians. At his trial he pleaded not guilty, but refused to offer any defence. Convicted of six murders, he was sentenced to life imprisonment with sentences totaling 684 years, with a recommendation he serve at least thirty years.

While in HM Prison Maze, Stone became one of the five leaders of the Ulster Defence Association/"Ulster Freedom Fighters" prisoners. Alongside the other four, he met Mo Mowlam during the 1998 negotiations between the government and paramilitaries as part of the peace process. The goal was to get the paramilitaries to come to the negotiation table. He also collaborated with Martin Dillon on a book about his life entitled Stone Cold.