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Two men have been charged with murdering a UDA man during feud between rival loyalists groups in Northern Ireland.

Tommy English (39), was shot dead in front of his wife at his home in Newtownabbey, Co Antrim in October 2000.

The two men, aged 34 and 38, were arrested following an investigation by the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s Historical Enquiries Team.

The pair, who are also charged with membership of a proscribed organisation, are due to appear in court in Belfast in the morning. 

English, who had been involved with the UDA’s political wing the Ulster Democratic Party in the negotiations leading up to the 1998 Belfast Agreement, was killed by the Ulster Volunteer Force during its feud with the
UDA.

He was one of four men shot dead within a week. Seven men were killed in the three months of loyalist in-fighting.

His murder was reinvestigated by the HET following a damning report by former Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan in January 2007 on alleged collusion between the security forces and loyalist paramilitaries in the greater north Belfast area.

Mrs O’Loan, who upheld a complaint by Raymond McCord, the father of another loyalist murder victim, said paramilitaries had effectively been given immunity to kill in as many as 12 murders in order to protect senior UVF member and police informer Mark Haddock.

The HET, which is currently re-examining thousands of unsolved Troubles murders, established a separate unit to look at the cases flagged up by the ombudsman in her Operation Ballast inquiry.

“The work undertaken by the HET in response to the Operation Ballast report is entirely separate from its work on other cases,” a HET spokeswoman explained. The charges are the first brought by the HET since it was established in 2006.