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Relatives form new victims' group | |
(about 17 hours later) | |
The father of a UVF murder victim is to form a new victims' group along with other relatives of people killed in NI. | |
Raymond McCord's son, Raymond jnr, 22, was beaten to death in a north Belfast quarry in November 1997. | |
On Monday, the assembly debated the murder and alleged police collusion with the loyalists responsible. | |
Mr McCord said the Victims Commission set up by the assembly was a "sham" and a new cross-community group would be established this week. | |
"We are going to set up our own victims' group. | |
"We will help people the way they should be helped and not (through) a political agenda," Mr McCord said. | |
"There is no group here in this country dealing properly with people being intimidated, particularly at interface areas." | |
Members of the team would include Paul McIlwaine, whose son David, 18, and Andrew Robb, 19, were stabbed in Tandragee, County Armagh, in 2000. | |
Others are north Belfast priest Fr Aidan Troy and Bernadette O'Rawe, whose nephew, Gerard Devlin, was fatally stabbed in Whitecliffe Parade in west Belfast in February 2006. | |
Mr McCord said he intends to apply for grant funding for the group. | |
The executive has twice postponed an assembly debate on the establishment of the official four-member Victims Commission. | |
The dispute surrounds unionist demands for a chief commissioner, which Sinn Féin opposes, wrangling over the decision-making process and concerns about appointing staff with paramilitary backgrounds. | |
UVF gang | |
Raymond McCord jnr's murder was one of a series blamed last year by ex-Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan on a UVF gang given immunity as Special Branch informers. | |
The SDLP motion that was debated "applauded the work of the McCord family's campaign for justice". | |
The family of murdered south Armagh man Paul Quinn attended the debate. | |
Paul Quinn, 21, from Cullyhanna, died last October after being attacked and beaten at a shed near Castleblayney in County Monaghan. | Paul Quinn, 21, from Cullyhanna, died last October after being attacked and beaten at a shed near Castleblayney in County Monaghan. |
His family blame members of the IRA and say he had defied an order to leave the country. Sinn Féin has denied any republican involvement in the murder. | |
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