Adrian Guelke

South African academic based in Northern Ireland.

UDA shooting

Guelke was shot by the Ulster Defence Association in September 1991.

Guelke has criticised Paul Larkin's account of the incident.

The problem for Larkin is that my case hardly demonstrates the intimate level of collusion that he wishes to suggest existed among the Loyalists, elements of the security forces and the apartheid regime. Larkin claims that Brian Nelson, the UDA intelligence officer with both security-force and South African connections, had a role in supplying information about the file at the heart of my case. This seems highly improbable. Had the UDA had access to the file about Mr X, then it would have been impossible for the agent of South African Military Intelligence to exploit his contacts with the Loyalists to get me shot. The UFF would have realised from the outset that I was not Mr X. What is more, the readiness of an agent of South African Military Intelligence to behave in this way hardly pointed to a durable relationship between apartheid South Africa and the Loyalists.

Guelke's version is arguably even more troubling. He mentions in passing that "This agent had somehow got hold of the security-force file about Mr X and then changed the details, inserting my name and address." If the South Africans did not get this file from the South Africans, they must have got it from someone else.