Video: Crumlin Road attackers compared with those who shot RUC officer outside Richmond Centre

West Tyrone MLA Ross Hussey compared those reponsible for the shooting of a PSNI officer on the Crumlin Road on Sunday with the killers of RUC Constable Michael Ferguson who was shot dead by the IRA outside the Richmond Centre 24-years-ago on Monday.

The Ulster Unionist Party MLA said there was no difference in the two attacks suggesting “for all we know, the same weaponry was used”.

Mr. Hussey referred to the discovery by the PSNI in Derry and Strabane of “many weapons and explosives” belonging to various paramilitary groups over recent years and claimed there was collusion between the “Provisional IRA and the ABCDEFG IRA”.

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“In my constituency of West Tyrone, and in the neighbouring one of Foyle, the Police Service of Northern Ireland has recovered many weapons and explosives, all belonging to terror groups that do not have the guts to give themselves a name or, at times, call themselves the ‘Continuity IRA’ or whatever,” Mr. Hussey told the Assembly on Monday.

“I have a name for them, and that is ‘cowards’; that is all they have ever been and all they ever will be.”

Mr. Hussey made the comments almost a quarter of a century after Omagh-born RUC officer Michael Ferguson was shot dead by the IRA in Derry city centre.

“Twenty-four years ago today, a 21-year-old Royal Ulster Constabulary officer was shot dead in Londonderry. He had his whole life in front of him. Constable Michael Ferguson was done to death by the same sort of individual who tried to kill the police officer last night in Belfast,” said Mr. Hussey.

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“There is no difference. For all we know, the same weaponry was used. For years, I have been asking the police for information on weaponry that has been recovered and its history. For some reason, that information has never been released. Why? Can that weaponry be traced back to the IRA?

“Is there a possibility that groups that were IRA took their weaponry with them? Of course there is. That element of collusion between the IRA - the Provisional IRA and the ABCDEFG IRA - is here to today. All that weaponry must be surrendered to the police.”

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