The World - News from July 28, 1988

The outlawed Irish Republican Army confirmed that last weekend’s land mine explosion that killed a Protestant family of three was actually intended for a Belfast judge. In a statement issued in Belfast, the IRA said that Ian Higgins, a Roman Catholic justice whose home was the target of an IRA attack 18 months ago, was the intended target of the land mine. At the time of the explosion, he was returning home with his wife and daughter from a vacation in the United States, as was the family that was killed. The IRA, which is fighting to end British rule in Northern Ireland, said that Higgins had been “unexpectedly delayed and the wrong description was passed on.”