None Shall Divide Us

Michael Stone's Rambo-style bid to execute Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams has made him a major figure in Loyalist politics. He was born in East Belfast in 1955. In 1988, he was charged and sentenced to life for the murders of six men. He served 12 years in the Maze Prison before being released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement in July 2000. To Loyalists, Michael Stone is an idol and an icon. His face is painted on walls in working-class housing estates and his desire to remove Adams and McGuinness from the political spectrum has turned him into a local superhero. A meticulous killing machine, he knew no loyalties except to Ulster - and his gun - and all factions of loyalism hired him randomly. He executed six men, whose deaths were claimed under different loyalist groupings until justice finally caught up with him and he was sentenced to 800 years in prison. When he left prison a free man, 12 years later, he renounced terrorism, openly declared his war was over, apologised for the suffering he had caused and said that the fledgling peace process was the only way forward. Now, in his own words, Michael Stone has written a brutally honest - and sometimes shocking - account of his life. He shares important documents that have not yet come to light, reveals the truth about his influential turning-point meeting with Mo Mowlam, and shares every aspect of his personal life (he has been married twice and has nine children).