N IRELAND: PORTADOWN: GUNMAN KILLS CATHOLIC GOVERNMENT WORKER

(21 Apr 1998) English/Nat
A gunman on a bicycle killed a catholic local government worker at a refuse collection area in the largely Protestant town of Portadown Tuesday.
No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack, but local media has speculated that a dissident Protestant group may be responsible.
It was the second shooting in Northern Ireland since the Good Friday peace agreement.
The strength of Northern Ireland's new peace agreement was once again put to the test on Tuesday as a Catholic man was gunned down on the streets of Portadown.
The shooting happened at a municipal council depot where the victim, who was in his early thirties, was working.
The gunman was reported by police to have ridden into the council yard on a bicycle.
Local witnesses said the victim was hit in the head and back.
No one claimed responsibility, and there was no immediate indication of the motive, other than that the victim was a catholic.
Local leaders were not surprised that a killing could take place despite the peace agreement signed last Friday.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"Well, sadly the people who perpetrated this atrocity today have no interest in peace and no interest in the agreement. We always knew that there were going to be a few people on either side who were not interested in peace and wanted to break the whole agreement."
SUPER CAPTION: Ken Twyble, the mayor of Craigavon
Portadown is a stronghold of the pro-British Protestant militia, the Loyalist Volunteer Force (L-V-F).
It was the second shooting in Northern Ireland peace agreement.
On Friday, a Belfast taxi driver was shot to death.
His family blamed the Irish National Liberation Army, an IRA splinter group that has not declared a cease-fire.
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[@paulnelson6277]

We need to ban all soldiers from wearing moustaches.

[@pauldunneska]

Real ones or fake ones.

[@therealslimshady4555]

Trimble only got that job because he looked like Harold mccusker

[@charliebridges3584]

@Pat McCaliskey That would be Nobel Prize winner Trimble, would it? Well, at least one of his own crowd almost broke his fingers one day when out canvassing in that delightful town of Portadown

[@Rfc22169]

Up the loyalists

[@pauldunneska]

Down with that sort of thing.