Blood From a Stone

It is now 18 years ago since the Loyalist sectarian murdering bigot Michael Stone got an unwanted global audience when he attacked mourners at Milltown cemetery killing three in a grenade attack. Stone was arrested, after he got the living daylights kicked out of him, on the nearby M1 Motorway and at court was found guilty of six murders for which in was sentenced to thirty years imprisonment. The BBC are to run a series on BBC2 in the near future showing its first attempt at Truth and Reconciliation. It its first episode Stone has a nervous but poignant face-to-face encounter with the widow of a man he murdered. The painful meeting was overseen by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who headed South Africa's post- apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Stone was convicted of gunning down Dermot Hackett, a 37-year- old Catholic bread delivery man, as he made his way to work. Stone repeated his claim that Mr Hackett had been recognized as a member of the IRA in security files he had claimed to have seen, a claim his family angrily denies. Mrs Hackett broke down and wept during the altercation, she asked Stone why he had carried out the horrific killing. After Stone remarked that her husband did not see his grandchildren grow up, Stone said he had not seen three of his own grandchildren. Mrs Hackett said: "That was your choice. It was not Dermie's choice. You had yours, he did not have his."The moving exchange is part of a remarkable series of six controversial meetings, called Facing The Truth, between victims and perpetrators from the Troubles.

In them, a number of men of violence meet those they have irreparably damaged, hear their heart-rending stories and acknowledge the pain they have caused. Archbishop Tutu said the series was one of the most important things he had ever been involved in and felt that it offered a way forward. The programme will have its critics, though, for giving a voice to a convicted killer. Michael Stone was released from prison, where he was serving life sentences for six murders and five attempted murders, in 2000, as part of the Good Friday Agreement. When Stone was asked if he could claim justification for his actions, Stone stated: "At that time, and, as I said, the circumstances and the fact that I was willing, would have been willing, to take a man's life, it would have been justified. It's regrettable." He also tells the family how he "de-humanised" his victims to make it possible to kill them. "I don't seek sorrow or redemption. I have my political beliefs. They are in the past. You can become jaded throughout the years. Stone claimed his notoriety was a terrible burden.

Whatever anyone feels about the horrendous incidents that occurred in the past. One thing is abundantly clear. The Victim makers have changed to the point where they see themselves as some sort of, other victim. Some people may choose to believe this nonsense but one simple fact remains Stone and his elk had a choice, they choose badly. No amount of retrospective remorse can ever undo the terrible crimes they committed. Having held the power of life and death and having killed people like Stone cannot ever, ever claim the moral high ground because they have no right to it.