I've never murdered anyone

But Midland terror suspect supported loyalist killings

Exclusive

By Fionnuala Bourke

A Midland terror suspect has denied involvement in a high-profile murder in 1976 - but he has admitted his paramilitary past.

Samuel Black Carroll, who lives in Rugely, Staffordshire, said he had never been personally involved with sectarian killings although he "supported" some loyalist murders in Northern Ireland.

He also denied having anything to do with the shooting of Mr Ludlow, whose case is currently being reviewed by the Irish government.

Mr Black Carroll, also known as 'Mambo', was one of four men arrested and later released without charge for the killings in 1998.

In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Mercury he admitted links to members of the Red Hand Commandos, an extremist terrorist group made up of Protestant hardliners.

Mr Black Carroll also told how he was once arrested in connection with the murder of Maire Drumm, vice-president of Sinn Fein.

And among his closest friends he listed Lenny Murphy and Billy Wright

Murphy led the notorious Shankhill Butchers who murdered 19 people and who was killed by the IRA in 1982. Wright, founder of the paramilitary Loyalist Volunteer Force, was shot in the Maze prison by an INLA gunman in 1997.

Mr Black Carroll, 50, said: "I have never denied I am a Loyalist. My closest friends in Northern Ireland are from various Loyalist groups, including the Red Hand Commandos with whom I have been closely associated for years.

"I have also been associated with the Ulster Volunteer Force, the Ulster Defence Association, the Ulster Freedom Fighters and the Orange Volunteers.

"One of my greatest friends was Lenny Murphy, who ran the Shankhill Butchers. People have identified me as one of the Shankhill Butchers, but I wasn't - although I was closely associated with the leadership.

"I supported the killing of known activists in the area, not the killing of innocent people. People who were not activists should not have been targeted."

The Irish Government is expected to receive a report into the death of Seamus Ludlow from former Supreme Court Judge Henry Barron in the next two months.

Mr Ludlow, a 47-year-old forestry worker, was shot three times and dumped in a ditch near his Dundalk home on the Irish border in 1976. No-one has ever been charged with his death.

After four days of intense interrogation at the Castlereagh holding centre in 1998, Mr Black Carroll was released without charge.

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

Missing

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

"There's only one person who carried that name in the whole of Ireland and that's me. The murder is associated with that name rather than me.

"But 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."

It has been reported that the Irish police, the Gardai, were given the names of Mr Ludlow's killers three years after his death.

Mr Black Carroll said: "The Gardai had my name all those years ago so why didn't they come and question me earlier about Seamus Ludlow?

"I was arrested in 1998 in Rugely and flown under a glare of publicity to Ireland, which caused me a lot of hardship. At first I thought I was being arrested for the murder of Maire Drumm, who was vice-president of Sinn Fein. I've been arrested for that before on the word of a supergrass.

"The people who killed Seamus Ludlow apparently were drunk. I'm not a serious drinker, that's well known.

Mr Black Carroll said he felt sorrow for the pain caused to innocent people during the Troubles.

"i have lots of regrets and sorrows about Northern Ireland," he added. "But I have not mellowed and I am still a very angry man.

"I am angry about the indiscriminate car bombings that were carried out in my neighbourhood.

"Republicans were bombing our streets, destroying our community, killing our people. That's the community I come from.

"But I was never against my Catholic neighbours. I was against the terrorists of the day. Unfortunately the groups I was connected with became terrorists.

"They were terrorising our friends and neighbours."

Mr Black Carroll has six children through different relationships and a number of adopted children. He said he was no longer associated with Loyalist groups because many were dealing drugs.

"The concept of Loyalism has been degraded. I don't want to be identified with it anymore," he said. "A lot of Loyalists today are drugs barons but I am anti-drugs.

"I came to England on a permanent basis in 1991 because my sister died from cancer and I became responsible for bringing up her children.

"I do not have a permanent home anymore. I use Rugely as a base but spend my time travelling round the country."