The pseudonym "Red Hand Defenders" has cropped up on a number of occasions throughout the Troubles in Northern Ireland. It is probably borrowed from the name of a loyalist marching band in Co Down of the same name. It was used again on Friday night to claim responsibility for the murder of the first working journalist to be killed in the Troubles.
The name is most frequently used by the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) and by the Ulster Defence Association (UDA). However, the IRA has also used the same name to try to divert attention away from the fact that it shot a Catholic man in his home in Coalisland, Co Tyrone, on August 30th last.
The LVF began to use the "Red Hand Defenders" cover in October 1998. There had previously been no reason for the LVF to cover up its activities, but by the end of 1998 the British government was progressing with its programme of the early release of terrorist prisoners under the terms of the Belfast Agreement.
The IRA and mainstream loyalists were beginning to see their members walk out of the Maze Prison gates in growing numbers. The LVF prisoners wanted out as well, but their associates on the outside did not want to end their campaign of sectarian attack s on Catholic homes and churches. The decision was made to invent a cover name.
The LVF had attacked about 20 Catholic homes with pipe or petrol bombs and about 10 churches during the autumn of 1998. The "Red Hand Defender" cover name was first used on October 3rd 1998 to admit some of these attacks.
Four days later, during loyalist rioting in Portadown, a pipe bomb manufactured and thrown by the LVF killed an RUC constable, Frankie Millar. The LVF quickly issued a statement in the name of the bogus loyalist group. If the LVF, which was ostensibly on ceasefire, was to accept responsibility its 30 or so prisoners would remain locked up in the Maze while the other groups were let out.
Three weeks after the murder of Constable Millar, the LVF and its UDA associates in Belfast shot dead a Catholic man, Mr Brian Service (35), as he walked home near the Ardoyne area of north Belfast. Again the murder was claimed in the name of the "Red Hand Defenders".
The next major act of violence - involving both the UDA and LVF - was the murder of the Catholic solicitor, Mrs Rosemary Nelson. She was killed by a booby-trap bomb left under her car in Lurgan on March 15th 1999. The bomb was manufactured by the UDA and planted by the LVF.
Mr Martin O'Hagan and his colleagues on the Sunday World were among the few journalists in Northern Ireland who were able to establish facts surrounding the activities of the LVF and UDA.
He published a number of stories that embarrassed the LVF and UDA.
The LVF had already conducted a campaign of threats and intimidation against Mr O'Hagan and the Sunday World, forcing Mr O'Hagan to seek refuge in the Republic from 1992 to 1993.
The group issued a statement in 1998 using the "Red Hand Defender" cover in 1998 in claiming responsibility for a bomb attack on the Sunday World offices in Belfast. It accused the newspaper of "demonising" loyalist people.
In February 1999, just weeks before it murdered Mrs Nelson, the LVF issued a statement denying it had any connections with the Red Hand Defenders.
It said: "Any suggestion that the LVF are connected with either grouping is completely without foundation. The LVF ceasefire is still intact."
The combination of simply not admitting responsibility for attacks and adopting the imaginary persona of the Red Hand Defenders worked. The LVF prisoners were released.
Remarkably, the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) responded with a directive proscribing the Red Hand Defenders and making membership an offence punishable by imprisonment.
At the same time, the then Northern Secretary, Dr Mowlam, announced - by way of balance - that she had accepted the INLA's six-month ceasefire as complete and unequivocal, thus allowing the release of their remaining prisoners.
In proscribing the Red Hand Defenders the NIO was, effectively, banning a non-existent organisation and providing succour to the active terrorist group which was using the cover name to hide its activities.
Last Friday the NIO again drew back from taking strong action against the UDA, which has been heavily involved in violence over the past few months, carrying out murders, pipe-bomb attacks on Catholic homes and churches and stirring up public disorder in north Belfast.
The UDA recently used the same "Red Hand Defender" cover to issue a threat to the parents and children of Holy Cross Primary School in Ardoyne, saying it would carry out sniper attacks on the families.
At the weekend, the RUC Chief Constable, Sir Ronnie Flanagan, reiterated his view that the Red Hand Defenders does not exist. Senior security sources have pointed the finger at the LVF as being responsible for Mr O'Hagan's murder.
However, if the NIO were to target any single terrorist organisation for breaching the cease-fires it would have to take into account the activities of all the other groups who have been carrying out murders, kidnappings, racketeering, "punishment" shootings and beatings and fomenting sectarian violence.