Bullets 'like other IRA shootings'
Source: pressassociation
Bullets fired in a terrorist gun attack that killed two British soldiers were of a make and date similar to those used in Provisional IRA shootings, a court has heard.
One of the two guns used in the ambush in which English sappers Mark Quinsey, 23, and Patrick Azimkar, 21, were murdered was also used in two previous gun attacks on police stations in Northern Ireland, a firearms expert told Antrim Crown Court.
The two Royal Engineer sappers were shot dead as they collected pizzas with comrades outside the gates of Massereene Army base in Antrim town in March 2009.
They were only hours from flying to Afghanistan to begin a six-month tour of duty and were already dressed in desert fatigues.
High-profile republican Colin Duffy, 43, from Forest Glade in Lurgan, Co Armagh, and Brian Shivers, 46, from Sperrin Mews in Magherafelt, Co Londonderry, deny two charges of murder and the attempted murder of six others - three soldiers, two pizza delivery drivers and a security guard.
The murders, which took place four years after the Provisional IRA claimed it had decommissioned its arsenal, were carried out by break-away dissident republican terror group the Real IRA.
Senior forensic scientist Jonathan Greer told the third day of Duffy and Shivers' trial that the 65 bullets found at the scene were M67 cartridges used in AK assault rifles and stamped with the code NMY82, indicating they were made by a company in the former Yugoslavia for use by that country's military.
"Cartridges of those manufacture and date have been attributed to the Provisional IRA previously," Mr Greer said.
Mr Greer also said a number of marks on the back of sapper Quinsey's jacket were fired at close range. "They were consistent with someone standing over a prone body while it was wearing the jacket and firing down towards it," he said.
Earlier the non-jury trial before Mr Justice Anthony Hart was read statements from medics who had battled in vain to save the lives of sapper Quinsey, from Birmingham, and sapper Azimkar, from London, in the wake of the shootings.
Bullets fired in a terrorist gun attack that killed two British soldiers were of a make and date similar to those used in Provisional IRA shootings, a court has heard.
One of the two guns used in the ambush in which English sappers Mark Quinsey, 23, and Patrick Azimkar, 21, were murdered was also used in two previous gun attacks on police stations in Northern Ireland, a firearms expert told Antrim Crown Court.
The two Royal Engineer sappers were shot dead as they collected pizzas with comrades outside the gates of Massereene Army base in Antrim town in March 2009.
They were only hours from flying to Afghanistan to begin a six-month tour of duty and were already dressed in desert fatigues.
High-profile republican Colin Duffy, 43, from Forest Glade in Lurgan, Co Armagh, and Brian Shivers, 46, from Sperrin Mews in Magherafelt, Co Londonderry, deny two charges of murder and the attempted murder of six others - three soldiers, two pizza delivery drivers and a security guard.
The murders, which took place four years after the Provisional IRA claimed it had decommissioned its arsenal, were carried out by break-away dissident republican terror group the Real IRA.
Senior forensic scientist Jonathan Greer told the third day of Duffy and Shivers' trial that the 65 bullets found at the scene were M67 cartridges used in AK assault rifles and stamped with the code NMY82, indicating they were made by a company in the former Yugoslavia for use by that country's military.
"Cartridges of those manufacture and date have been attributed to the Provisional IRA previously," Mr Greer said.
Mr Greer also said a number of marks on the back of sapper Quinsey's jacket were fired at close range. "They were consistent with someone standing over a prone body while it was wearing the jacket and firing down towards it," he said.
Earlier the non-jury trial before Mr Justice Anthony Hart was read statements from medics who had battled in vain to save the lives of sapper Quinsey, from Birmingham, and sapper Azimkar, from London, in the wake of the shootings.
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