A banner glorifying notorious UVF hitman Wesley Somerville has been removed from a lamp-post in Co Tyrone.
Relatives of people killed by the loyalist and his UVF unit had called on police to removal the banner from a lamp-post in Moygashel, Co Tyrone.
It was put up beside another banner paying tribute to the Mid Ulster UVF.
A UVF flag has also been flown from the same lamp-post.
It is understood the Somerville banner was removed at around 1.15pm yesterday, although police were not responsible.
It is not known if the banner was stolen or removed after negotiations with local loyalists.
“Police have received reports that the potser was removed,” a spokesman said.
SDLP councillor Denise Mullen, who was recently appointed to the local Policing and Community Safety Partnership, welcomed the removal of the banner.
“I am relieved to see this banner removed, it should never have been there in the first place,” she said.
Her father Denis Mullen was gunned down by the Glenanne Gang at his family home at Collegeland, Co Armagh, in September 1975.
A gun used to shoot her mother during the attack was also used in the Miami Showband ambush.
Police have said they were treating the erection of the Somerville poster as a “hate incident” rather than a hate crime.
A spokesman also claimed last night that the UVF banner had not been reported to them.
However, this is disputed by the family of one of his victims, Patrick Falls, who was shot dead at Falls Bar at Aughamullan, near Coalisland, in November 1974.
His sons Brian and Aidan say both banners and the UVF flag were reported to the PSNI twice this week as “hate crimes”.
Somerville was killed along with fellow loyalist Harris Boyle - both were also members of the UDR - as they placed a bomb on a minibus carrying the Miami Showband near Banbridge in Co Down on July 31, 1975.
The bus had earlier been stopped at a bogus UDR checkpoint.
When the bomb exploded members of the loyalist gang - some of them also UDR members - opened fire on the band, killing lead singer Fran O'Toole, guitarist Tony Geraghty and trumpeter Brian McCoy and wounding two others.
Wesley Somerville has also been identified as a suspect in the murders of Arthur Mulholland and Eugene Doyle at Hayden's Bar near Pomeroy in Co Tyrone in 1975 and the 1973 shooting of Banbridge trade unionist Patrick Campbell.
He was involved with the notorious Glenanne Gang, which included members of the RUC, UDR and UVF.
Independent councillor Barry Monteith said there was “dismay and great concern among the nationalists and republican community in the area” that the banners had been put up.
“A week does not seem to go by that there are not more revelations about the activities of the man and his cohorts in the Glenanne Gang and it’s regrettable that anybody would seek to celebrate that,” he said.
