GELDOF LYRIC USED BY TERRORISTS

A Bob Geldof lyric has been adopted by a terrorist group, the Irish National Liberation Army. The line, "It's a rat trap Billy, and you've been caught," has been used to celebrate the INLA assassination of LVF leader Billy 'King Rat' Wright in the Maze prison in December 1997.

This allusion is to a Geldof song, 'Rat Trap', which topped the charts in 1978, when the Irish singer fronted the Boomtown Rats. T-shirts bearing the reference are currently on sale in Northern Ireland, complete with a graphic of a rat in the H-blocks (where Wright was imprisoned). A target has been drawn on the animal's head.

According to Irish paper The Sunday World, the proceeds from T-shirt sales will be used to "assist" INLA inmates when they leave the Maze prison.

Several T-shirts are apparently 'collector's items in that they have been autographed by the three INLA men who carried out the murder inside the prison (John Kennaway, John Glennon and Christopher McWilliams). These are apparently being offered as the prizes in $10 ballots in American supporter's clubs.

The original Geldof lyric to 'Rat Trap' dealt with social deprivation in Dublin. Geldof had been outspoken in his opposition to terrorism in Ireland, and recently appeared in a charity show in aid of the victims of the Omagh bombing.