THE ULSTER Volunteer Force (UVF) has denied that over 80 weapons and 10,000 rounds of ammunition discovered in north Belfast are part of its arsenal.
The guns and bullets were discovered after police went to investigate the death of suspected suicide victim Billy Bell, aged in his 50s, at his home in the Ballysillan area of north Belfast. He is believed to have shot himself with an illegally-held weapon.
Some 70 guns and a large amount of ammunition were found in his house, while more weapons were found in a nearby lockup. Loyalist sources said the weapons did not belong to the UDA, while other loyalist and security sources suggested they were linked to the UVF.
If these weapons are established to belong to the UVF it will call into question its statement of last year that it guns were “put beyond use”, and also cause embarrassment to the Progressive Unionist Party, which is linked to the UVF.
Billy Hutchinson of the PUP said it was important to remember and respect that a man had died and that his family was grieving.
Mr Hutchinson, who is the interlocutor between the UVF and Gen John de Chastelain’s decommissioning body, said he spoke to UVF leaders yesterday and they categorically denied this was a UVF arms cache. “The guns did not belong to the UVF, and the man was never a member of the UVF.”
Mr Hutchinson understood that Mr Bell ran some form of combat company, and that police should be pursuing this line of inquiry.
One security source described Mr Bell, who died last weekend, as “something of an eccentric” who collected replica weapons. He had certificates for some of these weapons, but not for the overall haul. Some sources suggested he was a weapons expert who could convert replicas into functioning guns. Police are carrying out checks to see if the weapons were used in paramilitary shootings.
