Shot priest thanks DUP's Paisley

Father Creagh's story will be featured on Spotlight

A Belfast missionary priest seriously injured in a gun attack in South Africa has thanked the Reverend Ian Paisley for his wishes of support.

Father Kieran Creagh was shot twice by robbers at the hospice he founded to help Aids sufferers in Pretoria.

Surgeons had to remove one of the bullets from his lung.

Fr Creagh said he wanted to thank DUP leader Mr Paisley, who had been one of many people from Northern Ireland who had sent him messages of support.

"Ian Paisley contacted my brother Liam to say he was 'thinking and praying for your brother the priest' - and that is just brilliant.

"Thanks Ian - honest to God, that's brilliant," he said.

Speaking in his first media interview since the shooting, Fr Creagh told the BBC's Spotlight programme he had to have a series of operations to remove the bullet from his lung.

"One of the bullets was lodged in my lung and they were going to keep it there, but then they realised it had done more damage so they had to go in a second time and take it out," he said.

"That was the worrying part of the operation, but they have got rid of it and they have stitched everything up."

He also described the moment when he was confronted by the armed gang.

"I was saying don't point that gun at me, what are you doing here, this is a hospice, people are dying here, they don't need this rubbish, go on home," he said.

"They shot me outside my door first and then, as I was running along the courtyard, they shot me again."

Two mobile phones, a two way radio and a safe - which is believed to have been empty - were stolen in the robbery.

The priest, who was the first person in Africa to be injected with a trial HIV vaccine, was made Irish International Personality of the Year in 2004.

He received the award after volunteering to try out the vaccine, despite being free from the virus himself.

He has worked with Aids patients in the country for a decade and opened the Leratong hospice in 2004.

Father Creagh's story will be featured on Spotlight on Tuesday at 2240 GMT on BBC1 Northern Ireland.