Michael Stone (born 2 April 1955) was an Ulster Defense Association volunteer who carried out the 1988 Milltown Cemetery attack in County Antrim, killing 3 and wounding over 60.
Biography[]
Michael Stone was born in Birmingham, England on 2 April 1955 to an English father and a Catholic Irish convert to the Church of England, and he was adopted by a family in Ballyhalbert, County Down, Northern Ireland after his father joined the Merchant Marine and his mother abandoned the family. In 1971, he joined a "tartan gang" of Protestant youths in Belfast and joined Tommy Herron's Ulster Defense Association. In January 1974, he attached himself to the Red Hand Commando after Herron's murder, and he rejoined the UDA in 1984 as a member of the South Belfast Brigade. He took part in numerous murders, and he attempted to kill Sinn Fein leaders Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams in the 1988 Milltown Cemetery attack. However, the attack failed, and he was captured and imprisoned by the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Sentenced to 684 years in prison, he was released in 2000 under the Good Friday Agreement, and he was briefly arrested in 2006 after he was suspected of planning a terrorist attack on the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont. In 2008, he received a 16-year-sentence for his crime.