LOYALIST PARAMILITARY Michael Stone continued to plead his innocence yesterday as he was convicted of attempting to murder Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness at Parliament Buildings, Stormont, in November 2006.
"It was art," said Stone, mustering a somewhat downbeat sense of defiance as he shuffled out of the dock at Belfast Crown Court.
"Another concession to the Shinners," he added in his own characterisation of Mr Justice Donnell Deeny's ruling.
"A joke," he said finally.
The judge, a former chairman of the Northern Ireland Arts Council, was unconvinced by Stone's defence that when the Milltown Cemetery killer attempted to break into Parliament Buildings armed with assorted weapons such as knives, nail bombs, a garrotte, an axe and a replica handgun, he was engaging in nothing more than an exercise in "performance art".
Stone mounted his assault on Stormont on November 24th, 2006 - a day when it was hoped that Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness would formally agree to share power, although that did not happen until more than six months later.
Before doing so, he wrote letters to two journalists outlining how he could be dead or in jail when they read the missives, and how his mission was to kill Sinn Féin president Mr Adams and Deputy First Minister Mr McGuinness.
Shortly after his arrest, he made such an admission to the police. But later Stone's story changed.
The threat, the aiming of the replica gun at a security guard outside Parliament Buildings, the daubing of one of the pillars with graffiti, the attempted break-in at the building, the attempt to ignite an incendiary in the hallway of the building and the letters admitting his murderous intentions were all part of the performance art script, Stone argued.
His goal was to expose the hypocrisy of Northern politicians such as the Sinn Féin leaders and former first minister Dr Paisley, the court heard.
Among the examples of elements of performance art that Stone referred to were: trying to ensure he had only £30 in his pocket to reflect "30 pieces of silver" representing the political betrayal which loyalists were suffering; wearing a fisherman's hat in reference to "Martin 'The Fisherman' McGuinness"; sticking a sponge instead of a magazine into the replica gun to mark former prime minister Harold Wilson's famous 1974 speech depicting unionists as "spongers".
There was even mention of US artist Jackson Pollock in Mr Justice Deeny's judgment.
"A number of his explanations are nonsense," said the judge, accepting the prosecution's case that when Stone was apprehended at the swing doors of Parliament Buildings by security staff Sue Porter and Peter Lachanudis - both of whom he particularly commended - his destination and ambition was to enter the Assembly chamber and, as Stone himself wrote, "slit the throats" of Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness.
Mr Justice Deeny said that Stone was "a wholly unreliable and unconvincing witness" whose "testimony is wholly undeserving of belief". The judge found that Stone was guilty of attempted murder of the two Sinn Féin leaders, although acknowledging that while "not impossible", it was unlikely he would have succeeded with his plan.
He convicted the loyalist on seven further counts of possession of explosive devices and weapons, and of criminal damage.
He accepted the word of explosives experts during the trial of four and a half weeks that the nail bombs and incendiary devices he was carrying were viable and could have caused death.
Stone (53), who was previously convicted of murdering three people at Milltown Cemetery in March 1988 during the funerals of the three IRA members killed by the SAS in Gibraltar, was dressed in court in denim jeans, jacket and light blue shirt.
Shorn of his long curls, his hair was short and straight.
Stone is a father of nine children and has 10 grandchildren, but there was no evidence of any family member or loyalist supporter present in the court room.
Sentencing will take place after Stone's counsel makes representations on his behalf to Mr Justice Deeny early next month.
