The Dundalk Democrat, 6 March 2004:

Suspect says he was not involved in Ludlow murder

 By Anne Marie Eaton

Samuel Black Carroll, one of the four men questioned in 1998 about the murder of Seamus Ludlow insisted this week he is not guilty of the May 1976 murder.

 "It just doesn't make sense for me to have been involved in the Seamus Ludlow case", he said.

Justice Henry Barron has confirmed to the Ludlow relatives that the four men questioned at Castlereagh six years ago, had been in Dundalk on the night of Seamus Ludlow's murder, and had intended to kill someone that night.

Speaking this week, Seamus' nephew, Jimmy Sharkey said he feels Carroll has been "abandoned by his handlers and hung out to dry."

Seamus' murder was initially blamed on the IRA, but this was denied to the family on a number of occasions.

Information gathered over the years, including details given by an eyewitness to the murder, Paul Hosking, indicate his murder was carried out by UDR men with links to the Red Hand Commandos.

Hosking says he was in the car that stopped to pick up Seamus, who was on his way home from a night out.

Instead of dropping him at his home, in Mountpleasant, the car was driven down the nearby Bog Road. Seamus was shot three times and his body dumped in a ditch down a laneway. It was found the following day.

Although the four men, including Hosking and Carroll - nicknamed 'Mambo' were interviewed the Director of Public Prosecutions, however, directed that no proceedings should be issued.

The decision not to prosecute the four men could not be explained by the Northern Ireland Ombudsman, Nuala O'Loan, and her team, who in a meeting with the Ludlow family in 2002, said that the same four names were given to the RUC Special Branch in 1977, and passed onto Detective Chief Superintendent John Courtney in 1979.

Carroll, who admits to associations with the UVF, UDA, UFF and the Orange Volunteers, maintains that he was not in the country in 1976, and had gone 'missing' for a time. He also says the men who murdered Seamus Ludlow were said to be drunk, although he himself was never a heavy drinker.

"During 1976 I was out of the country for a while and I went 'missing'. Many people thought I was dead. They thought I had been killed in a car crash in Guernsey."

He insists that the murder was linked to the name Mambo rather than his full name.

"The name Samuel Black Carroll was never mentioned in the interviews. It was always Mambo.