A veteran Northern Ireland prison officer whom republican dissident paramilitaries killed in a drive-by motorway shooting on Thursday was a member of the Protestant Orange Order, it has emerged.
David Black's murder in front of early morning commuters between Lurgan and Portadown as he drove to work has raised fears of loyalist terrorists retaliating, given his links to the Orange and Protestant communities.
The 52-year-old father of two, who had served in the prison service for nearly 30 years, had recently applied for voluntary redundancy, his union confirmed. His wife Yvonne called for no retaliations. "Grief and sadness in another home will achieve nothing," she said.
Black died at the scene from gunshot wounds after his black Audi car was raked with automatic fire at around 7.30am at the M12 turn-off of the M1. A blue Toyota Camry with a Dublin registration had driven up beside the victim's car while he was driving to work in Maghaberry top-security prison – a jail that is at the centre of violent republican protests.
After Black was hit in the body several times, his car veered off the road and rolled into a drainage ditch, the Police Service of Northern Ireland said. The car believed to have been used by his killers was later found burnt out nearby in the Inglewood area of Lurgan, County Armagh.
The murder is thought to have been the work of a small group of republican veterans who are based in the Lurgan-Craigavon area, and who recently linked up with the new IRA. This group emerged during the summer and is an amalgam of disparate factions including the Real IRA, Republican Action Against Drugs and independent armed republican units in the east Tyrone area. This new alliance has been targeting prison officers in recent months, as well as other members of the security forces.
Black's career included working at the Maze jail during the 1981 hunger strike. His last job involved him guarding 41 dissident republican prisoners belonging to the Continuity IRA and the new IRA factions in Maghaberry prison. Among the anti-ceasefire republicans held are three prisoners charged with gathering information on and targeting prison officers.
Maghaberry has been the focal point of republican prisoner protests over strip-searching, with some inmates refusing to wash and in some cases throwing excrement from their cells into corridors.
Black was from Cookstown in Co Tyrone and belonged to Montober Orange Lodge, the loyalist marching institution confirmed. The Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland paid tribute to its colleague and said his only "crime, like many of those before him, was to wear the uniform of his country, serving the community as a member of the security forces".
Edward Stevenson, the Grand Master of the Orange Order in Ireland, added that Black was the 337th member of the organisation murdered by republican paramilitaries since 1969.
Martin McGuinness, the Sinn Féin deputy first minister of Northern Ireland and former IRA chief of staff during the Troubles, also denounced the killers.
McGuinness challenged what he called the "mouthpieces" of dissident republicanism to come into the open and explain the rationale behind "this pointless and futile killing". His key partner in the Stormont power sharing government, Democratic Unionist Party leader Peter Robinson, described the killers as "flat-earth deviants".
Expressing concern about the threat of further terror attacks on police officers and prison staff, Terry Spence, the chairman of the Police Federation of Northern Ireland, warned: "Prison officers and police officers alike are aware of the deadly threat from dissident terrorists who won't face up to the fact that Northern Ireland has moved on and will not go back to its awful past. We must all be totally vigilant about our personal safety."
His concerns were shared by the head of the Prison Officers' Association of Northern Ireland, Finlay Spratt, who claimed the government had put his members in the firing line by reducing their security. "They have stripped away all the security around prison officers. They treat us now as if we live in normal society," he said.
He added that he had known Black, describing him as "a very nice fellow to work with. He always ensured he did his job to the letter. He was a very good officer."
Northern Ireland's justice minister, David Ford, said that, while dissident republican groupings had little support, they had proved that they could still be dangerous. He confirmed that a number of prison officers had been moved out of their homes after the PSNI received intelligence reports that groups like the Continuity IRA and the new IRA were targeting them for assassination.
The British and Irish governments joined local politicians in condemning the motorway murder. David Cameron said: "These killers will not succeed in denying the people of Northern Ireland the peaceful, shared future they so desperately want."
The killing is likely to be top of the agenda when ministers from Dublin and Belfast meet at the 15th North-South Ministerial Council in Northern Ireland .
Sue McAllister, the recently appointed head of the prison service in the province, said it had been a "very sad" day for all those who had served with Black. She said she intended to meet Black's widow, Yvonne, his son, Kyle, and daughter, Kyra.
