Police question leading loyalist

The police are continuing to question the prominent Ulster Defence Association figure arrested following a raid on a bar in east Belfast.

Security sources have identified him as Jim Gray, who was shot and wounded by the Loyalist Volunteer Force two weeks ago.

The police said the arrest was in connection with a pipe bomb found in a search of the Bunch of Grapes bar on Saturday.

Mr Gray, the UDA's east Belfast leader, is the organisation's second senior member to be arrested in recent weeks.

People are running about like it's the Wild West

Jim Rodgers
Ulster Unionist councillor

A fortnight ago, the organisation's north Belfast leader was arrested and charged with having a gun.

The arrest follows growing tensions among loyalist paramilitaries which police said was behind the murder of a man in east Belfast on Friday.

Geoffrey Thomas Gray, 41, from the Beersbridge Road area of the city was shot dead in Ravenhill Avenue.

He was shot in the chest by a lone gunman wearing a baseball cap and black clothing who fled the scene on foot.

The father-of-three had moved to Belfast from Portadown in the last year.

On Saturday, a man escaped a murder attempt in the east of the city.

Revenge attack

He was driving along Ravenscroft Avenue off the Newtownards Road with his four-year-old son when he was attacked.

A motorbike carrying two people pulled alongside and a shotgun was fired.

The 26-year-old man was treated for a head wound which is not thought to be life-threatening.

The loyalist feud erupted last month when LVF member Stephen Warnock was shot dead outside a school in Newtownards, County Down.

Jim Gray was allegedly targeted in a revenge attack.

After Saturday's raid, he was taken for questioning in Lisburn.

Meanwhile, the Ulster Defence Association expelled one of its most prominent figures, Johnny Adair, and his close associate John White, from the organisation.

Saturday's gun attack on the 19-year-old was condemned by an Ulster Unionist councillor in Belfast, Jim Rodgers.

The UUP councillor claimed businesses were suffering because of the fear and tension in the east of the city.

"People are running about like it's the wild west," he said.