James Craig

Who is James Craig?

James Pratt "Jim" Craig was a Northern Irish loyalist, who served as a fund-raiser for the Ulster Defence Association and sat on its Inner Council. He also ran a large protection racket from west Belfast's Shankill Road area, where he lived. Described by journalist David McKittrick as "Belfast's foremost paramilitary extortionist", Craig also allegedly colluded with republican organisations such as the Provisional IRA and Irish National Liberation Army, providing them with information on key loyalists, leading to their assassinations. Besides controlling rackets and extorting protection money from a variety of businesses, it was claimed that he participated in killings.

He was accused by the Ulster Volunteer Force of setting up the assassinations of their key members by IRA hit squads, such as Shankill Butcher Lenny Murphy, John Bingham, and William "Frenchie" Marchant in the 1980s. Craig was killed by the UDA, using their cover name of the "Ulster Freedom Fighters", for alleged "treason" as it was suggested he had passed on information to the IRA regarding South Belfast UDA brigadier John McMichael, who was blown up in an IRA booby-trap car bomb in December 1987. Craig was shot dead in "The Castle Inn", a pub in Beersbridge Road, east Belfast. An elderly pensioner was also killed after getting hit by stray gunfire.