Member of Notorious Gang Shot to Death
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From Times Wire Reports
An unidentified gunman killed Robert “Basher” Bates, a member of the British-ruled province’s most notorious gang, in the Shankill Road area of west Belfast. There was ‘no immediate claim of responsibility, and police later said that Irish republican guerrillas did not appear to have been involved. Bates was on parole after serving two decades in prison for his role in the so-called Shankill Butchers gang that carried out a wave of gruesome knife killings of Roman Catholic nationalists in the early 1970s.
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