EXILED UDA leader Johnny Adair claims to have teamed up with a German neo-Nazi bomber to fund a home for children orphaned in war-torn Uganda.

Adair’s strange relationship with Nick Greger, a notorious far-right German skinhead who is barred from entering the UK, is to be chronicled in a documentary on Channel 5 on Tuesday. Donal MacIntyre, its presenter, interviewed Greger in Dresden prison, where he was being held on explosives and incitement charges.
 
In the film Greger, who was released on October 27, says he and his organisation regard Adair as their leader and they threaten violence to “sort out” UDA rivals who forced him out of Belfast last year.

Adair now lives in Troon, Ayrshire, Scotland, with a coterie of former loyalist terrorists, having been released from jail in January 2005. In an interview with The Sunday Times yesterday he praised Greger as “a good guy, a Protestant”.

He and Greger will travel to Africa next year to help build an orphanage. It will be funded from the proceeds of a book and film deal Greger has signed in Germany. MacIntyre and David Malone, a Channel 5 producer, intend travelling with them to make another film.

Last week, the Church Mission Society, a Church of England charity based in London, confirmed it had been contacted by Greger about the orphanage project. It put him in touch with Benjamin Ojwang, the Anglican bishop of Kitgum in Northern Uganda. A spokesman said that Greger told them he had “been convicted of hate crimes in the past” but had now made “a journey back to God”.

Ojwang, a human rights campaigner, said Greger had written to ask him “whether it would be possible to work with me here on an orphanage project, to assist me with funds”.

The rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Northern Uganda has kidnapped more than 20,000 children for use as slaves or “boy soldiers”. An estimated 1.2m people have been displaced in the conflict and tens of thousands killed.

Ojwang, who has been taken hostage by the LRA, said: “Nick Greger has not told me about John Adair. He has told me he will be coming alone but I have no problem if that person has a good reputation.”

MacIntyre believes Adair helped Greger turn his back on a violent and racist past. But such a conversion has been questioned by Johnston Brown, the detective sergeant who built the case that first imprisoned Adair on charges of directing terrorism.

The Channel 5 report shows Brown meeting Adair in Salford Lads’ Club in Manchester.

“There is absolutely no chance of Adair having a change of heart,” Brown said. “He is not St Paul on the road to Damascus. He would be a very bad influence on orphans or young people. If there was anything positive that I could say about Adair then I would say it, but I can’t think of one thing.

“Adair has nothing to offer but violence, death and destruction. He is a punk-rocking, glue-sniffing, handbag-snatching lout who joined the UDA to avoid a punishment shooting for attacking a pensioner and taking his eye out.”

Adair said he is “not a religious man” but now believes in the fifth commandment and does not want to shoot Brown or anybody else.

Speaking on the programme about his time as leader of the UDA’s notorious C Company he admits involvement in drug dealing, prostitution and extortion and estimates that 30 people died as a result of his activities.

He adds: “I loved it. I was married to that organisation”.
 
 
November 26, 2006
Liam Clarke and Mike Wade
The Sunday Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2091-2472149,00.html