Paramilitary organisations deny responsibility for pipe-bomb attack

The major loyalist paramilitary organisations yesterday denied responsibility for Sunday night's pipe-bomb attack on the parents of an associate of leading loyalist Billy Wright. The parents of Alex Kerr, who like Mr Wright is under a death-threat, were shocked when the explosive device was tossed through the window of their home in south Belfast. They were protected from the blast by a chair.

Mr Kerr is in prison awaiting trial on a charge relating to a loyalist paramilitary organisation. Mr Wright declared: "How can they call themselves loyalists if they carry out this attack on loyalist pensioners?" Billy Hutchinson, a spokesman for the Progressive Unionist Party, one of the organisations at odds with Mr Wright, called the attack "dirty tricks" by loyalist dissidents. David McKittrick