Former UDA commander Johnny Adair returned briefly to his native Shankill in Belfast early yesterday morning to pose for a newspaper photograph, it has emerged.
Adair fled Northern Ireland to Bolton after he was released from prison, but he spent about 10 minutes on the Shankill around 7 a.m. yesterday morning where Belfast's Sunday Lifepaper took pictures of the convicted loyalist.
The paper said it did not pay him to pose for the shot or for the interview that is to be published in Sunday's edition.
Adair said that he returned to Belfast as an "act of defiance" against the local UDA, which has threatened to kill him.
He told the paper he was only making a brief visit yesterday but that he would be back to the Shankill. It is understood that he entered Northern Ireland through the Republic and crossed the border again yesterday evening on his way back to Bolton.
Shortly after his Shankill visit he travelled to Portadown, where he has friends among some of the local Loyalist Volunteer Force members, with elements of the Belfast UDA in pursuit after they learned of his appearance in Belfast's loyalist heartland.
There was a heavy police presence in Portadown when about three dozen UDA members searched a local hotel for Adair. But by that stage he was on his way back to his new Bolton home, it is understood.
