A Sinn Fein minister in Northern Ireland's power-sharing government says a shadowy anti-Catholic gang is trying to kill him.
Regional Development Minister Conor Murphy says police officers told him Monday they had received intelligence that a paramilitary group calling itself the Orange Volunteers tried to kill him over the weekend. Murphy didn't reveal any details of what kind of assassination was planned or what went wrong.
Murphy appealed Tuesday for political leaders of Northern Ireland's Protestant majority to condemn such threats and to reaffirm their support for sharing power with Sinn Fein, the major Catholic-backed party in the British territory. Protestant extremists killed dozens of Sinn Fein activists from the 1970s to 1990s.
