Edgar Graham: IRA’s ‘brutal murder’ of UUP assembly member and lawyer 40 years ago

He was shot outside the university library.

The first chairman of the assembly's finance and personnel committee, Mr Graham had just got out of his car when he was shot by two terrorists.

The gunmen, who were not masked, ran off behind the QUB library.

Nobody has ever been convicted of the murder.

According to Troubles reference work ‘Lost Lives’, the terrorists carried clipboards and mingled unnoticed with students until they approached Mr Graham from behind and fired several shots.

He was unable to draw the personal protection weapon which had been issued to him by police, and died instantly.

Coroner James Elliot said of the murder: “Mr Graham was well known as a brilliant scholar and lecturer and played a prominent part in the political life of the community.

“No doubt his skill and advocacy were a great thorn in the flesh of some people who did not agree with his views and who tragically did not feel fit to meet him in a democratic forum.

“Instead, they chose to terminate his life in this cowardly fashion.”

Last night, in a statement, TUV leader Jim Allister said: “On the 40th anniversary of Edgar Graham’s murder my foremost thoughts are with his beloved sister, Anne, who even this week has had to suffer the vile abuse of relentless and heartless republican trolls.

“I had the privilege to know Edgar quite well from our university days.

“His brutal murder 40 years ago ranks among the most calculated and cruel of the IRA.

“I’m in little doubt that his prodigious talent as an up and coming unionist leader made him a target for IRA terrorists who could not compete with his intellectual articulation of the unionist and anti-terrorist case.”