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Eddie 'Onions' Rainey
South Belfast UVF boss Eddie ‘Onions’ Rainey’s new best friend is a loyalist traitor shot for treason.
The under-fire terror chief is under fresh pressure as it emerged he has allowed a former commander to return to Donegall Pass – a decade after he was kicked out of the area in disgrace.
Rainey, who has lost the respect and backing of many veteran UVF men, is so desperate for support he has allowed the traitor to return and settle in south Belfast.
Senior loyalist sources on Rainey’s patch are said to be “mystified and angry” at Rainey’s latest gaffe.
In the past he has allowed convicted child killer rapist Trevor Hinton to return to the area, prompting fury among resident and provoking a picket outside his house.
Now 65 and claiming to be a born again Christian, Hinton brutally murdered catholic teenager David McClenaghan in front of his mother, before raping her.
Rainey granted him sanctuary on Donegall Pass.
But the return of a man drummed out a decade ago for setting up members of his own organisation for murder has infuriated loyalists.
The Sunday World can reveal that the man in his mid-thirties and whose identity we know, was ‘convicted’ of treason in a UVF court, shot in both ankles and ordered out of the area.
A one-time UVF commander on neighbouring Sandy Row he was a central figure in bitter inter-nicene feuding between his organisation and the UDA. Guilty of the ultimate betrayal, he was found to have been supplying the rival organisation with the movements of senior UVF figures.
It emerged he was passing information to leading UDA figure Roy Green, information that led directly to the shooting in his Sandy Row home of Paul Beattie.
A UDA team, led by killer and police agent Stephen ‘Inch’ McFerran burst into Beattie’s home shooting him a number of times in the legs.
Ironically Beattie was subsequently forced to quit south Belfast amid similar allegations that he was passing information on his loyalist comrades, this time to republican terrorists. A suspicion confirmed to many when he set up home in the staunchly nationlist enclave of the Ardoyne.
He subsequently fled to Scotland where he ended up behind bars after dishing out a savage beating after a man called him an “Irish p***k” outside a bar in Dumfries.
Rainey’s traitor pal was ruthless. In January 2003 he is believed to have been involved in the murder of his UDA contact Roy Green. Drug dealer Green had fallen foul of the organisation’s leadership because of his close relationship with UFF outcast Johnny Adair.
They turned to their bitter rivals for help and Rainey’s comrade had no compunction in setting Green up.
He was shot dead outside the notorious Kimberley Bar off the Ormeau Road, again it was McFerran who was behind the shooting and he was handed a five year sentence for the killing after pleading guilty to a charge of manslaughter.
McFerran was also involved in the murder of UDA man Thomas `Tucker’ Annett kicked to death outside the Kimberley in July 1996 – despite 20 witnesses to the killing no one was ever convicted and McFerran went to carry out at least 17 other murders, including the slaughter of five people when Sean Graham’s bookies was sprayed with gunfire in 1992.
The return of the UVF traitor – who has convictions for armed robbery – has revived memories of a dark period in loyalist history.
“This man could not have done anything worse,” said our source, “he was found to have been setting up members of his own organisation for murder.
“He was tried, convicted and shot in the ankles, and he was lucky that was all they did to him. Now that idiot Rainey has brought him back in. Is he so desperate for friends that he’s happy to bring in a traitor.”
It is believed he supplied information to the UDA in return for immunity for attack.
“He’s a coward, he sold out his own organisation to save his skin, now he’s back and he’s walking about the Pass as if he owned it.”
Support for Rainey has been dwindling as he has allowed the area to become saturated with class A drugs, and he since he became a heavy cocaine user.
He has been behind a spate of race hate attacks and is believed to have ordered a paint bomb attack on the home of a veteran loyalist in south Belfast this week.
richard.sullivan@nth.sundayworld.com