Joe Bratty

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Joe Bratty was a member of the Ulster Defence Association's South Belfast Brigade.

He was shot dead by the Irish Republican Army whilst walking along the Ormeau Road in south Belfast, along with fellow UDA/UFF member Ray Elder on 31 July 1994, just before the IRA's ceasefire.

Bratty was suspected by security forces of playing a role in, or at least orchestrating, around 15 murders. The most deadliest attack was when UDA gunmen murdered five innocent people at a bookmakers on the Ormeau Road, on the 5th February 1992. Bratty was suspected by security agents and the wider Belfast community of being behind the massacre. This immediately made him a number one target for Belfast republicans.

Born and brought up in the loyalist community of Ballynafeigh, Bratty took control of the local UDA unit and a killing spree in the late 1980s and 1990s was centred around the nationalist community on his doorstep, the lower Ormeau Road and Markets areas. He got the nickname 'Chinky', due to him having distinctive oriental shaped eyes.

His death in 1994 was one of the most controversial of the modern troubles. On the 31st August 1994, the Provisional IRA declared a complete cessation of military operations. This led the loyalist community to insist that the killings of Bratty and Elder were revenge attacks by undisciplined local republicans. Further controversy followed when rumours circulated that police surveillance unit E4A watched the two men machine gunned to death from gunmen from a passing car, using AK 47 assault rifles but were powerless to stop it. These rumours arrived from the fact that immediately after the killings police chased the killers back to the Markets estate but a local crowd prevented them from being arrested.