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My plot to murder Ken Livingstone, by former hitman
Last updated at 14:24pm on 01.11.06
Murder plot: Michael Stone (left) planned to 'clip' Ken Livingstone on the steps of a Tube station
Michael Stone, the most infamous hitman of the Northern Ireland conflict, has confessed to planning to murder Ken Livingstone. The former Loyalist assassin has revealed in an interview how he stalked London's Mayor when he was leader of the GLC in the Eighties.
He was within three days of carrying out the plan, he said, but it was called off because the operation had been penetrated by an informer.
Stone, 51, has never told the full story of the plot, although it was known Mr Livingstone had been a target of Loyalist paramilitaries because of his support for the Republican cause. Now, for the first time, Stone reveals details of how Mr Livingstone was to have been murdered.
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It was ordered by the military wing of the Ulster Defence Association, Stone said, and he was sent to England under the cover of working in a hotel owned by a Loyalist agent.
He made two excursions to London and followed Mr Livingstone to a Tube station. He resolved to shoot him as he walked down the steps. "There was no sign of any security at all. He was on his own, with a kind of attaché case slung over his shoulder. I thought that's how I would do it. I'd clip him on the steps of the Tube," he told the Evening Standard.
He was given a 9 mm Beretta pistol to use as the murder weapon.
Stone was already a practised killer. He had carried out a number of murders for paramilitary groups and then, in 1988, he tried to assassinate Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness in an incident that became one of the most infamous episodes of the Northern Ireland conflict.
Stone targeted the two politicians as they attended an IRA funeral in Belfast.
Armed with two handguns and hand grenades, he tried to kill both men, but the crowd of mourners closed in on him. He shot three of them before they caught and beat him. Police rescued him as he was being taken for execution by the IRA.
The scenes were captured by news teams and shown around the world. Stone says he viewed Mr Livingstone as "a legitimate target" because he was giving support and credibility to McGuinness and Adams. He says of the assassination plot: "One of my biggest regrets is that I had to call it off."
