SHANKILL Butcher Eddie McIlwaine has said he should be allowed to live his life as a private citizen, days after being spotted hanging up a UVF flag on the Shankill Road.
The image had been taken on Friday, the day before he had taken part in the Orange Order’s Whiterock Parade.
He served an eight-year sentence in 1979 for his crimes in the Shankill Butchers gang, which included members of the UVF.
This included the kidnapping of a Catholic man, Gerard McLaverty, who was savagely tortured by being beaten with a nail-embedded stick and left for dead with slashed wrists.
Having survived the ordeal, he later gave evidence that helped secure a number of convictions.
Facing criticism from the families of UVF victims, Mr McIlwaine has now said he should not face continued public scrutiny.
The Belfast Telegraph report that a statement released on his behalf said he had “paid his debt to society having served a lengthy period of imprisonment."
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Shankill Butcher Eddie McIlwaine spotted putting up UVF flag
Brother of loyalist murder victim condemns 'despicable' sight of Shankill Butcher erecting UVF flags
“Subsequent to his release he has not come to the attention of the authorities and has made a positive contribution to community life in his local area,” with the statement adding a number of attempts had been made on his life.
“He has been, and continues to be, a strong supporter of peace and has, over many decades, used his lived experience as a younger man to influence and guide the next generation of young men down a different path by which to pursue political objectives in the context of a post-conflict Northern Ireland.”
This week, the brother of a loyalist murder victim told the Irish News that the sight of McIlwaine putting up UVF flags was “despicable and frustrating.”
Gerry Armstrong’s 18-year-old brother Paul was abducted and murdered by the UVF in 1974.
“I’ve watched this over the years, and to me it’s just glorifying what they did to my brother. That’s not going to change in this place, I think. When you think about the times they would give the UVF ‘going away money’ and different things, that was annoying too.”
Jude Whyte, a former member of the Victims’ Forum, who lost his mother Peggy to a UVF bomb in 1984 said that McIlwaine’s actions were part of a wider problem in society.
“You will find IRA people putting up tricolours and this is the overall cultural war I suppose that’s going on here,” he said.
“Our patriots and heroes are the unionists' terrorists and vice-versa. Unless these two narratives can get off these parallel lines they’re on, this sort of stuff will go on forever.
“Eddie McIlwaine was part of a particularly vicious gang. I can remember living through those times. But I would suspect an awful lot of people would support what he did and would support him to this day, that he was a defender of Ulster when, in fact, it’s very hard for me to see it like that.”
