Massereene DNA ‘may be from Shivers’

Published Wednesday, 13 March 2013

Brian Shivers arrives in court. (PA)

Shivers, of Sperrin Mews in Magherafelt, denies the murders of sappers Mark Quinsey, who was 23 and from Birmingham, and 21-year-old Londoner Patrick Azimkar, who were gunned down in a deadly ambush outside the Co Antrim army base on 7 March 2009.

The 47-year-old also denies the attempted murders of two other soldiers, two civilian guards and two pizza delivery men, and possession of the two AK assault rifles used in the Real IRA shooting.

Mr Justice Deeny heard evidence that a DNA profile uncovered on a single match found beside a partially burnt out Vauxhall Cavalier had component parts consistent with Shivers' profile - but that a forensic scientist could not confirm whether it was his or not.

The gunmen made their escape in the car, which was later found partially burnt out in a laneway seven miles away.

The court has heard how two burnt matches and a mobile phone were found inside the car and crime scene investigators also found a partially burnt match outside the car.

Giving evidence at the Diplock, no jury trial, a senior forensic scientist said he had conducted tests on all of the items to ascertain if there was any DNA profiles on them.

Taking the two matches uncovered inside the Vauxhall Cavalier first, he told the senior prosecutor that he found a DNA profile which matched Shivers' and that the likelihood of it having come from a person unrelated to him was "less than one in one billion".

He said that having been involved in DNA analysis and the interpretation of results since 1992 and having been involved in hundreds if not thousands of cases, he was of the opinion that given the amount of DNA he found, it was more likely to have been put there by primary transfer rather than secondary transfer.

Excerpt from:
Massereene DNA 'may be from Shivers'