The timing of John McMichael’s death couldn’t have come at a worse time. I was on a roll, chasing senior Republicans all over Northern Ireland, and was particularly preoccupied with finding a way to eliminate the Republican hierarchy. I know McMichael was also masterminding his own operations to hit senior Republican figures. He was the brains behind the UDA’s aggressive offensive against prominent Republicans, including Bernadette McAliskey. He prided himself on being a man at war with militant Republicanism.
But there was a fly in the ointment. Jim Craig. I nicknamed him ‘the don’ because he swaggered around Loyalist West Belfast as if he was a Mafia boss. He always had a cigar in his mouth, wore an expensive overcoat and had gold jewellery on his neck, wrist and fingers. He was a man of middle UDA rank who thought he was the UDA. He patronised volunteers. One young man told me that Craig stopped him on the Shankill Road, took a look at the man’s wife, engaged the couple in idle chit-chat, then pulled out a wad of notes big enough to choke a donkey. The young volunteer said it looked like thousands of pounds held together in a rubber band. Craig pulled off two or three fifty-pound notes, handed them to the girl and told her to ‘buy herself a nice dress because you need one’. He then swaggered off, leaving the couple open-mouthed in disbelief. The young volunteer said he felt two inches tall.
Craig didn’t like McMichael. He hated his investigations into extortion and gangsterism. Craig was up to his neck in McMichael’s death and I was going to kill him for it. Over the years several Loyalists have said to me that Craig and two other men were in a van nearby and watched as the bomb detonated under McMichael’s car. Within hours of McMichael’s death, Craig had raided his office and stolen hundreds of documents. I wanted to avenge the death of my friend and colleague and I was, of course, acting on his personal wishes. Initially I wanted to look for Craig on the streets of West Belfast, with a clean weapon, probably an AK47, sourced from the quartermaster for South Belfast, and just gun him down on the street. A statement would be given to a newsroom claiming the death on behalf of a fictional Loyalist group, but weeks rolled into one and I was busy chasing Republicans, so Craig was put on ice.
Then Milltown happened. It was my intention that, once that major operation was over, Craig would be stiffed and I knew exactly what I was going to do. I would lure him away from the relative safety of his turf with a plan that would appeal to his greed. I would have a hole already dug and as he approached the meeting place, I’d shoot him, dump his body in the hole, cover him in lime and leave him to dissolve and rot. When Craig had John McMichael killed he deprived Loyalism of its best weapon for taking on the IRA and winning. When McMichael was murdered our best chance of winning the war also died. McMichael was the prototype of a tough new breed of Loyalist. He would have no dealings with brigadiers and commanders who had long-standing deals with the security forces and the Provos. He said it ‘bastardised’ the name of the UDA. He had his sights on Craig. Killing Republicans was something the UDA took pride in, but there was an aspect to the organisation which left a bad taste in McMichael’s mouth: extortion, gangsterism and racketeering. McMichael was seen as a purist. He got abuse from the old-school UDA who turned a blind eye to this sort of activity.
Jim Craig was the biggest racketeer in the UDA and enjoyed his self-appointed title of fund-raiser-in-chief. John McMichael was compiling a report on extortion and Craig’s name cropped up at every turn. Craig bullied hundreds of building firms all over the city. He told them they needed protection and protection cost money. Firms, fearful for the safety of their workers, would hand over thousands of pounds on a regular basis.
McMichael’s report also investigated Craig’s role in the death of two UDA men, Billy ‘Bucky’ McCullough and Billy Quee. Craig had both of these men murdered and even watched their executions from a safe distance. He called McCullough and Quee his ‘bridges to be burnt’. McMichael found that Craig, although a Loyalist, had conspired with both the IRA and INLA over the deaths of these two men and several other Loyalists. McMichael’s intelligence had also uncovered a trail linking Craig to a senior Republican in West Belfast and the death of Shankill Butcher and UVF leader Lenny Murphy. The intelligence showed that Craig had provided a safe house for the IRA unit in the Loyalist Glencairn estate where Murphy lived. The notorious Loyalist was shot as he stood at his front door.
There was also the matter of the phone call Craig made after McMichael ordered the assassination of Gerry Adams. Senior Republicans asked Craig why Adams was a target when it was contrary to the unspoken agreement that the leadership was not to be touched. Craig was conspiring to kill Loyalists and carving up areas with his Provo pals and this wheeler-dealer attitude infuriated McMichael. His internal investigation was going to expose Craig for what he was, a hood and a gangster. Once the findings were complete and it was presented to the Inner Council, Craig would be executed.
Craig knew the noose was beginning to tighten around his neck, and passed information to Republicans leading to John McMichael’s death. Before the report was finalised and put to the Inner Council, racketeering was raised at an Inner Council meeting. Craig, furious at the charges put to him, pulled out his gun, waved it around and pointed it at McMichael’s head. At the top of his voice he categorically denied he was a gangster and racketeer. He said he never worked hand in glove with the IRA or INLA. By brandishing his gun Craig made matters worse that evening. The Inner Council had an unspoken rule: no guns were to be carried during the meeting. Craig broke that rule. If the police had crashed the meeting, he would have thrown his gun into the middle of the room and every single one of the Inner Council members would have been arrested and done for possession.
I learnt from a former member of the Inner Council about the day Craig sealed his own fate. There was a robbery in Portadown, County Armagh. It was a big heist. The UFF unit was dressed in RUC uniforms stolen weeks earlier from a dry cleaner’s in Belfast. The unit raided the bank and calmly walked away with eight boxes of cash, each containing about twenty-two thousand pounds. At the Inner Council meeting Craig proposed each member of the Inner Council take a cut from the robbery to cover personal expenses. Tucker Lyttle backed the motion. Three brigadiers refused: Andy Tyrie, John McMichael and the man who told me the story. Craig pushed Tyrie, saying, ‘If we take it, you must take it too.’ Tyrie refused outright, saying that as Supreme Commander he would not be compromised. McMichael also refused, but the money appeared at his front door disguised as a parcel. At the next Inner Council meeting he handed back the money and said he couldn’t and wouldn’t take it. Craig stood up and personally addressed McMichael, saying, ‘If you don’t take the cash, none of us can. If you hand it back, we all have to hand it back.’ McMichael told the assembled brigadiers that he was giving the money to his quartermaster.
Craig was happy because he got to keep his slice of the funds. The brigadier told me he himself reluctantly accepted the cash and spent a couple of thousand pounds on his house and his family but then felt guilty. He returned what was left of the cash and Jim Craig said he was more than happy to ‘relieve’ him of his guilt and took the remaining cash for himself. McMichael was cleaning out the UDA closet. Craig didn’t like it and he had McMichael killed.
Jim Craig was no Loyalist. He was an unscrupulous gangster, a hood in a suit and gold chain. I was on remand when he was killed in October 1988. An associate of Craig’s asked for advice on how to handle him. He said the UDA didn’t want to kill Craig because he generated cash, so I told him about the robbery, the boxes of cash and the cuts Craig insisted on keeping. I warned him about the brigadier for East Belfast, known to have been turned by the Army, and that Craig’s downfall would be his greed. A message was relayed back to me to say that the UFF had agreed to ‘get rid’ of Craig and I was glad to hear it. A few weeks later there was a robbery in Belfast city centre. Several thousand pounds’ worth of gold was stolen. A Belfast unit told Craig they had jewellery they wanted to get rid of quickly and if he had a spare thirty thou
sand pounds he could have the lot. Craig bragged that he wouldn’t give a penny more than ten thousand and demanded to see samples.
A meeting was arranged in the Castle Inn in East Belfast. Craig went on his own. He was so greedy he refused to bring any of his henchmen. When the deal was done he flashed his cash and bought drinks on the house. Not that there were many people having a drink that night, just a couple of pensioners. Word had got out to stay away. I am told Craig had just finished a game of pool and was at the bar talking to a pensioner when the gunmen burst in. They were wearing boiler suits. Several rounds were fired and Craig was hit in the lower body and chest. Unfortunately, the old man Craig was talking to was also killed. Victor Rainey thought it was a Provo unit and threw himself in front of Craig to try to protect him, which is tragic.
The volunteers had been ordered to take Craig’s thick gold bracelet after killing him. It was going to be used, along with the massive wad of notes he kept in his pocket, as proof he was nothing but a gangster who bastardised the name of Loyalism. The volunteers tried to remove the bracelet but couldn’t. It was welded to his wrist, as we say in Belfast. At the time of Craig’s death I was on remand in the Prisoner Segregation Unit of Crumlin Road jail. News filtered through the wings that he had been killed. I remember the whoops of joy that filtered through the ‘Crum’, right down to the PSU. I heard the chants of ‘Old doggy-box head is dead.’ I smiled to myself. John McMichael finally had the justice he deserved.
McMichael had a young son, Gary, who wanted to carry the political baton his father had held for many years. After my arrest Gary and his aunt, John McMichael’s sister, came to see me in prison. They were very distressed about newspaper reports linking McMichael to me. The brigadier of South Belfast who inherited the area after McMichael’s death urged me to deny my relationship with my late friend. He said I should do it for ‘the sake of internal UDA politics and for the McMichael family’. I was shocked. McMichael’s sister and son were pleasant and courteous to me, but his sister cried a lot. His son was diplomatic and shifted uncomfortably in his chair when he addressed me. In front of McMichael’s grieving family I denied my relationship with the man I called my friend. I told them I never knew, never worked with him and never met John McMichael in my life. His son wanted something in writing, a statement he could read out to the press and I agreed to their wishes out of respect for the family.
My statement appeared in the Sunday Life as a two-page story. I felt insulted. Was I not good enough to know the man or was he not good enough to know me? I told a lie. I felt like Judas Iscariot. I denied my friend and associate. John was a good commander of the UFF. He was also an astute politician who had the skills and intelligence to make the UDA a political force to be reckoned with. Sadly, he didn’t get to reach his potential. I am sorry I denied John McMichael in front of his family and I am glad to have the opportunity to put the record straight. I did know John McMichael. I worked with John McMichael on a regular basis. Operationally, our work brought us into close contact and he was a trusted friend and ally.
I was sad that McMichael wasn’t around to see the UDA closet getting its clear-out, but I knew that if he had been he would have been happy to see the back of Craig.
It is ironic that the UDA’s biggest tout got rid of the UDA’s biggest gangster in a personal feud. Tucker Lyttle ordered the execution of Jim Craig. The UDA said Craig was executed for treason, and he was, but the real reason was that things had got personal between Tucker and Craig. Someone very close to Tucker was having an affair with Craig; Tucker was infuriated because the girl was underage. Tucker and Craig had words, Craig was warned off but ignored the threats. Tucker didn’t warn him again and had him killed.
Tucker Lyttle was the UDA spokesperson for fifteen years. He had a senior position in the organisation, holding the rank of brigadier for West Belfast. Tucker had a secret. He was a Special Branch informer and had several handlers. He cosied up to his RUC bosses and sold out his Loyalist brothers. To those of us who knew him, he was affectionately known as ‘Tucker the Fucker’. He was despised for bringing the Loyalist cause into disrepute with his covert relationship with the RUC.
He is the stuff of legend, but for all the wrong reasons. One story tells how he accompanied Loyalist icon Glen Barr to Libya to see Colonel Gaddafi’s men. The two were to make representations for financial assistance to set up an independent Ulster. The story goes that they ended up staying in the same hotel as Republicans who were in Libya to secure weapons for their armed struggle. A fight broke out and Tucker ran for his life. He grabbed a taxi, made straight for the airport and never looked back. He didn’t even take his suitcase. Tucker began his paramilitary career running vigilante groups in Protestant West Belfast and rose to leadership as the right-hand man of the UDA’s first leader, Charles Hurding Smith. He liked to dabble in politics and founded the New Ulster Political Research Group with Glen Barr and Andy Tyrie, but he did not impress voters, who abandoned him in their droves at the polls. In the mid-1980s he became a brigadier and under his stewardship most military activity ceased. But he fell out of favour with the young Turks, a new breed of ruthless men who saw merit in eliminating members of the IRA and Sinn Fein.
Tucker’s pride and joy were his greyhounds, which he raced in Dunmore Stadium in the heart of Republican West Belfast. One of his dogs, which he bought just weeks before Milltown, was worth five thousand pounds. It was worthless after Milltown because he had nowhere to race it. He couldn’t run the risk of going into Republican West Belfast: run the risk that his Provo pals might turn on him. Before Milltown he did what he liked. After Milltown he couldn’t put a step in Republican West Belfast. Tucker resented the Loyalist cause interfering with his social life and that’s why, after my arrest, he put out the rumour that I was ‘too extreme’ and not a member of the UDA. I had tried to assassinate the Sinn Fein leadership and that did not go down well.
His UDA career came to an end when he brought the full force of a major police investigation on the UDA. In 1989, the year I began my life sentence, he tried to justify the shooting of a Catholic man by passing a security-forces intelligence file to journalists. The outcry led to the establishment of the Stevens Inquiry to investigate collusion between the security forces and Loyalist paramilitaries. A year later he was arrested after his fingerprint was found on one of the restricted files. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to six years.
I had one unexpected visit from Tucker when I was in prison. I hadn’t asked to see him but he insisted he wanted to see me. It was a Saturday. News of his arrival was relayed through a Shankill Road prisoner. I asked him what Tucker wanted. I didn’t get an answer. It was early summer and the weather was warm. I made my way to the yard for a lift to take me to the visiting wing. Saturday is a busy day and lots of men were waiting for transport. I found it unusual that the bus, which usually comes every fifteen minutes or so, wasn’t around. The lads were agitated. A prison van pulled up and the lads cheered, but only I was allowed on board. The cheers turned to shouts and abuse. When I walked into the visiting area it was empty. I was the only one there. Normally at mid-morning on Saturday the room is packed with people, but now it was empty except for six prison officers lined up at one end. Sitting at a table was Tucker.
I sat on a chair facing him and we silently acknowledged one another. Tucker was after something. I asked the prison officers to leave us. They ignored me. They hovered just two feet away, which meant they could hear every word of our conversation.
‘I don’t mind them here. They are just doing their jobs,’ Tucker said.
I studied his face, letting him do the talking.
‘I need to know about Milltown.’
‘It is a need-to-know basis.’
Tucker shifted in his seat. His face was red and I could feel his anger.
‘I had a guy come to me recently, Stone. He was in tears. He was young and he cried like a baby. He said he killed Kevin McPolin.’
‘He is telling s
tories.’
‘He wanted to get it off his chest. He said he was sorry for killing Kevin McPolin and has nightmares about the man.’
‘I was convicted of the murder of McPolin. Why are you here?’
Tucker reached into his jacket and pulled out a small notebook. The sweat was pouring down his face. It was a warm summer’s day but he was wearing a jumper, a jacket and an overcoat. He was also wearing his bullet-proof vest. I wanted to leap over the table and break his neck.
‘Why are you wearing the vest? Are you afraid of me?’
‘You can’t be too careful. I need to know more about Milltown.’
‘It is a need-to-know basis. Always has been.’
‘When you went up to assassinate Martin McGuinness did you meet the Brigadier for Londonderry?’
‘Who is he?
‘I know you met him.’
‘Are you fishing for information?’
‘I need to know about the safe houses and the weapons. Who provided them?’
I never answered him. He blustered that he held UDA rank and was entitled to answers.
‘It is need-to-know and you don’t need to know.’
‘What about the brigadiers. Tell me, who sanctioned Milltown?’
‘Need-to-know.’
‘When you were arrested, I did not know you were on a UFFsanctioned operation.’
‘My intelligence tells me you met a tabloid Sunday newspaper journalist on the peace line, at a chip shop, and told him to put out the following statement, “Michael Stone is too extreme to be a Loyalist paramilitary. Michael Stone approached us but he was too extreme for the UDA and we turned him down.”How extreme can you be when you are taking human life?’
‘I did not know you belonged to us.’
‘When I get out of here I am coming to see you.’
He left. I never saw him again. I asked one of the prison officers escorting me back to the wing why I had the visiting suite to myself. He made no reply. When I said I was making a formal complaint they told me not to bother, saying they were in the visiting suite ‘at the request of your visitor’. Tucker had the whole jail locked down just to see me.
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