IRA conviction
January 20, 2012
A dissident republican was convicted on Friday of the murder of two unarmed British soldiers outside an army base in Northern Ireland in March 2009.
The judge sentenced Brian Shivers, 46, to life imprisonment for shooting dead Patrick Azimkar, 21, and Mark Quinsey, 23, as they came to collect a pizza delivered to the Massereene barracks in Antrim, west of Belfast. Four other men, including two delivery men, were injured as two masked gunmen ambushed the group.
The IRA, a paramilitary group seeking the end of British rule in Northern Ireland, claimed responsibility for the attacks. Azimkar and Quinsey were the first soldiers to be killed in Northern Ireland since a 1998 peace deal mostly ended three decades of sectarian violence.
A second suspect charged with the same offenses was acquitted. Judge Anthony Hart ruled that DNA evidence linking high-profile dissident Colin Duffy to the attackers' getaway car was inadequate to prove he was involved in the attack.
Duffy, 44, has been at the focus of several previous failed police investigations, first coming to prominence after he was cleared of a murder carried out by the IRA some 20 years ago.
Author: Charlotte Chelsom-Pill (AFP, AP, Reuters)
Editor: Andrew Bowen