Three convicted of Johnny Adair murder plot
Three men have been convicted of a gun plot to murder former UDA boss Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Adair and his right-hand man in Scotland.
A jury on Monday found 39-year-old Donegal man Anton Duffy, his cousin Martin Hughes, 36, and Paul Sands, 32, guilty of conspiring to murder loyalists Adair and Sam ‘Skelly’ McCrory.
After a nine-week trial at the High Court in Glasgow, Duffy and Hughes were also convicted of related terrorism charges.
They were arrested in 2013 after two major Police Scotland investigations into terrorism and organised crime.
Two other men, Craig Convery and Gordon Brown were found guilty of organised crime charges.
Adair was a leading figure in the UDA during the Troubles in Northern Ireland and moved to Scotland.
He and McCrory are convicted terrorists and have been living in Ayrshire for several years after they were exiled from Northern Ireland.
Adair commanded the UFF’s C Company and is reportedly responsible for dozens of murders. Sam ‘Skelly’ McCrory (pictured below) was described as Adair’s top operator.
Both men were freed from prison as part of the Good Friday Agreement.
The convictions over the plan to kill the pair are the result of 10 months surveillance by police and security services to foil the plot and bring them to justice.
The trial heard evidence that Duffy, Hughes and Sands planned the assassination while parked outside Mr McCrory’s home.
Duffy, from Donegal, was the ringleader of an unaffiliated unit inspired by dissident republicanism, and planned to carry out the double murder with Sands and Hughes while on home leave from prison, according to police.
Detectives bugged the car they were in and followed them as they drove from Glasgow and recorded Duffy expressing his intentions to “blast him” as he sat with Hughes and Sands.
The High Court in Glasgow heard that Duffy (pictured below) and Hughes drove from Glasgow on 1 October 2013 in a silver Mercedes 4×4 and met up with Sands in Ayrshire, who knew Mr McCrory well.
He knew where he lived and his movements. The plan was to make this murder look like a random shooting, the court was told.
Detective Superintendent Andy Gunn, who led one of the investigations, said: “This was not sanctioned by anyone of a higher authority within those circles, but was driven by Duffy’s own sympathies.
“He is a dangerous man who was determined to see this conspiracy through to its conclusion.
“I have no doubt that were it not for the intervention of the authorities in an operation led by Police Scotland, we would have been left investigating a double murder in an act of terrorism carried out in our communities.”
“Duffy had significant influence to persuade his associates to join the conspiracy, prepare for the act of murder and acquire the weapons to carry it out,” he continued.
“The streets of Scotland are safer now that he, Sands, Hughes, Brown and Convery have been convicted today.
“It brings two complex and challenging Police Scotland investigations to a successful conclusion.”
