Loyalists threaten Adair's wife

Gina Adair has been warned not to return to Northern Ireland

The loyalist paramilitary organisation the Ulster Freedom Fighters has issued another statement effectively warning Johnny Adair's wife, Gina, to stay out of Northern Ireland.

In February, she and other loyalists - including Adair's close associate John White - fled the Shankill under threat from the UFF following the murder of the South East Antrim Ulster Defence Association leader John Gregg.

Now the paramilitary group has warned that visits by them to Northern Ireland will not pass "without incident".

And the organisation has said that anyone associating with them "will not be tolerated" within the loyalist community.

On Monday night there was a security alert outside the house in the lower Shankill where Mrs Adair was reportedly staying. It was later declared a hoax.

Adair was arrested and returned to prison in January 2003 after Northern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy received information he was involved in directing terrorism, drugs, extortion and distributing weapons.

'Links broken'

In September 2002, he and John White had been expelled from the UDA during a bitter internal power struggle.

In February, Gregg, part of the leadership that expelled Adair, was murdered and supporters of Adair were blamed. Faced with death threats, more than 100 members of the so-called C Company based in the lower Shankill area broke their links with Adair.

About 20 of his closest followers, including his wife Gina, fled to northern England.

In June, the organisation murdered 21-year-old Alan McCullough linking him with the murders of Gregg and that of Jonathan Stewart, who was shot in north Belfast shortly after Christmas.

McCullough had recently returned to Northern Ireland after fleeing his Shankill home following the feud.

The UFF also claimed it carried out a gun attack in April on a house in Chorley, Bolton, in which Mrs Adair and her three children were staying. They were unhurt.