JOHNNY Adair and Sam McCrory were once feared leaders of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA).
Adair, known as 'Mad Dog,' was the 'brigadier' of the notorious 'C' company on the lower Shankill Road.
Dozens of Catholics were murdered by members of the gang with Adair taking charge in the early 1990s.
Adair was jailed in 1995 for directing terrorism and sentenced to 16 years but released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.
He was sent back to jail in the summer of 2000 during the loyalist feud but released in May 2002.
In 2002, Adair was expelled from the UDA/UFF for "treason" along with close associate John White.
Adair returned to prison in January 2003 after his early release licence was revoked by then Secretary of State Paul Murphy on grounds of engaging in unlawful activity.
Just a month later, UDA divisional leader John Gregg was shot dead along with another UDA member Robert Carson as they returned from a Rangers FC match in Glasgow.
The killing was widely blamed on Adair's 'C' Company after Gregg was one of those who had organised Adair's expulsion from the UDA.
Five days later, following the bitter power struggle Adair's family and a tiny band of supporters were driven out of 'C' Company's stronghold in the lower Shankill and fled to Scotland.
Adair's close confidant, Sam 'Skelly' McCrory formed a racist skinhead gang along with Adair in their youth.
McCrory and three others were ambushed by the British Army in 1992 as they attempted to target IRA leaders Brian Gillen and Martin Lynch.
He was convicted and sent to the Maze prison, where he later became one of the UDA leaders chosen to meet Mo Mowlam in her talks in the jail aimed at salvaging the loyalist ceasefires.
McCrory was the last commander of UDA inmates in the Maze prison.
In 2008 he came out as gay and is now involved in gay activism in Scotland.
When the UDA divided in late 2002 over Adair's attempt to seize control of the organisation, McCrory sided with his associate whom he had known since the early 1980s.
In November 2008, he appeared in an episode of Danny Dyer's Deadliest Men, in which both men visited McCrory's former stronghold in Belfast.
