William Moore was a Belfast loyalist and a member of an Ulster Volunteer Force unit that carried out sectarian murders in the city in the mid-1970s. In February 1979 he pleaded guilty to 11 counts of murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment. He was one of eleven men sentenced at the same time for 19 murders. He was released in 1998 under the Good Friday Agreement and died in May 2009, aged 60.
Moore was born in about 1949. He was a member of the Ulster Volunteer Force, a loyalist paramilitary organization, and belonged to a unit led by Lenny Murphy. Murphy was jailed on a separate offense before the trial, and Moore became one of the men closest to him.
The unit killed Catholic civilians in Belfast, and the killings were sectarian in intent. The trial judge later described the unit's crimes in court as "a catalogue of horror" and "a lasting monument to blind sectarian bigotry."
One of the victims, Cornelius "Con" Neeson, died in August 1976. Moore and a second man, Robert Bates, were linked to his death.
The eleven men were sentenced on February 20, 1979 for 19 murders. Moore pleaded guilty to 11 counts of murder. Robert Bates pleaded guilty to ten. The trial judge, Lord Justice O'Donnell, sentenced both men to life imprisonment and recommended that they never be released.
Despite the judge's recommendation, Moore was released in 1998 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. He died on May 17, 2009, at the age of 60.
The Ulster Volunteer Force was one of the loyalist paramilitary organizations active in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. Prisoners convicted of offenses connected with the conflict became eligible for early release under the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, and the members of the unit still in prison were freed under it.
1976: Lenny Murphy is jailed on a separate offense.
August 1976: Cornelius "Con" Neeson dies in Belfast.
February 20, 1979: Eleven men are sentenced to life imprisonment for 19 murders; Moore, having pleaded guilty to 11 counts of murder, receives a life sentence.
1998: Moore is released under the Good Friday Agreement.
May 17, 2009: Moore dies, aged 60.