The man received a 5 year sentence (2 years imprisonment and 3 years probation).
Three men were previously sentenced in January 2011 and were each given sentences of five and a half years (two and a half years imprisonment and 3 years probation).
On Thursday 22 July 2010 at around 9:40pm, four men entered a house at St James Road, Belfast. The men who claimed to be from Oglaigh Na h’Eirean (ONH) shot an 18 year male in the legs before making off into the nearby Bog Meadows. The men got into a car parked at the bottom of Milltown Row and made their way towards the Falls Road. A short time later officers from the PSNI’s Crime Operations Department stopped the males on Milltown Row at its junction with the Falls Road.
The men were arrested and in the course of subsequent house searches two prohibited tazer devices were found.
Two of the four were additionally charged with possession of Tazer prohibited weapons for which they received 6 month concurrent sentences.
This follows a string of recent arrests and convictions for so-called 'punishment attacks.
FairCop and WIMPS both welcome the recent arrests, convictions and sentencing of those involved in these brutal attacks, many of which are perpetrated against young people.
WIMPS has been actively campaigning for punishment attacks to be put on the agenda of the Northern Ireland Policing Board and the PSNI, since a FairCop Freedom of Information Request in 2011 revealed that only 4% of these attacks have been cleared since 2008.
The NIPB's recently published Human Rights Annual report draws attention to the blight of punishment attacks on young people.
In a statement, Detective Superintendent Glenn Wright of the PSNI’s Serious Crime Branch said the sentence was "the culmination of complex and professional investigations by the PSNI’s Crime Operations Department". Detective Superintendent Wright went on to say that "today's sentence on top of the previous three sentences in January should hopefully demonstrate that the police will use the Criminal Justice System to bring those responsible for terrorising people to court and that those who are made amenable can expect substantial sentences".
