BELFAST, Northern Ireland - A Protestant extremist was convicted on 48 terror counts and sentenced to 28 years in prison Friday, following the longest criminal trial in Northern Ireland's history.
William James Fulton smiled as Belfast Crown Court Justice Anthony Hart found him guilty of killing a grandmother with a pipe bomb, wounding four police officers with a grenade, possessing firearms used for other killings, smuggling drugs and a host of other crimes.
Hart gave Fulton a 28-year sentence for the attack on police, 25 years for murdering Elizabeth O'Neill, a Protestant married to a Roman Catholic and a string of lesser sentences for other crimes. Because the sentences were to be served simultaneously, only the longest sentence will apply.
Fulton's Belfast trial began in June 2003 but faced myriad bureaucratic delays.
Fulton, 38, was a former commander of the Loyalist Volunteer Force, an outlawed anti-Roman Catholic group based in Portadown, a hardline Protestant town southwest of Belfast.
