A GRAVESIDE eulogy describing murdered loyalist paramilitary leader Billy Wright as "Ulster's Braveheart" has been branded "disgusting" by the son of an LVF victim.
The oration on the 25th anniversary of Wright's death on Tuesday was framed in a "cute way" with one reference to "peaceful ideas" but still glorifying him as a martyr, Co Tyrone man Ruairi Cummings said.
Mr Cummings, then aged just 17, was outside the Glengannon Hotel near Dungannon with his father Christy and two other doormen when the LVF launched an attack on December 27 1997.
Seamus Dillon was shot dead while Mr Cummings' father was left paralysed and a third man injured in the attack.
Mr Cummings was standing just feet away when the shooting took place.
The attack was carried out hours after the INLA shot dead LVF leader Billy Wright in the high-security Maze Prison.
It was the first in a series of slayings that left at least 15 people dead over the next four months, most of them random Catholics.
Pastor Kenny McClinton, a friend of Wright, delivered Tuesday's oration at the killer's grave at Seagoe Cemetery in Portadown, Co Armagh.
He branded as "snakes" those who planned and carried out the killing, but also those who stated that Wright "was militarily opposed to the so-called peace process".
"Some of these vipers; ‘snakes’ that St Patrick obviously missed, sowed the blatant lies that contributed to the treacherous death of ‘Ulster’s Braveheart’, Billy Wright," McClinton told the gathering.
"I can testify that my friend Billy Wright whom we remember today was never opposed to a lasting and genuine peace – Billy Wright and his close confidantes and friends were totally opposed to the process."
McClinton, a one time UDA member convicted of two murders but who renounced violence in the late 70s and later became a pastor, did not mention UVF/LVF victims in his oration, Mr Cummings said, adding he wants Mr McClinton to meet victims.
It bordered on incitement as he "stoked the fire" while making a passing reference to "peaceful ideas", said the Cookstown man.
"I believe everybody is entitled to grieve but to come out and glorify acts of terror in public no matter who you are is rubbing salt in the wounds of victims. It is disgusting."
Earlier this week Paddy Fox, the son of Charlie and Tess Fox, a couple killed by Wright's unit, condemned the planned public show in support of the one time head of the Mid-Ulster UVF.
In reference to other victims of the same unit, Mr Fox said: "It's hard to equate martyrdom with the murder of pregnant women and schoolboys playing videos in in a taxi office among the many of his innocent victims."