More than 70 firearms and thousands of rounds of ammunition found after suicide of UVF veteran Billy Bell

This article is more than 11 years old

This article is more than 11 years old

More than 70 firearms and thousands of rounds of ammunition have been recovered from the house of a loyalist terrorist in Belfast.

Sources told the Guardian today that the discovery was made after the suicide of Billy Bell, an Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) veteran, who shot himself in the Ballysillan area of north Belfast last weekend.

A note at Bell's home led the Police Service of Northern Ireland to the munitions. More firearms were found at a lock-up garage.

Loyalist sources said Bell, who had cancer, left the note near his body saying where the firearms could be found. They said the weaponry was a large proportion of the UVF's weaponry in north Belfast.

The discovery is a huge embarrassment for the UVF - the oldest loyalist terror group in Northern Ireland - and its political wing, the Progressive Unionist party. Last year the UVF declared its "war" was over and that it had stopped recruiting and gathering intelligence. It said it had put its weapons "beyond use", although no independent observers verified this.

The Sinn Fein assembly member Gerry Kelly said: "The obvious question that nationalists across north Belfast will be asking is what the UVF were doing with 70 guns and a large amount of ammunition in the city anyway, 14 years after the UVF declared a ceasefire.

"If anything, this find reinforces the fact that continued pressure, especially from the British government and the unionist parties, needs to be brought to bear on loyalist paramilitaries to once and for all get their deadly arsenal off the streets."

Billy Hutchinson, the UVF's link to the international decommissioning body, said: "First and foremost a man has died and his family will be grieving at this time, it is important we acknowledge and respect that.

"In relation to the weapons, I have made initial enquiries and will continue to pursue that throughout the day with the hope of making a full statement at a later time."

A spokeswoman for the Northern Ireland police service said officers were examining the firearms and ammunition.

Bell's funeral was scheduled to take place at noon today. A relative warned reporters to stay away.