The World - News from Aug. 14, 1988
The outlawed Irish Republican Army claimed responsibility for killing a British soldier in the Belgian port of Ostend and urged civilians and families not to travel with British troops. Belgian police, meanwhile, continued to search for the two men who gunned down Warrant Officer 1st Class Richard Michael Heakin, 38. Heakin, dressed in civilian clothes, was killed Friday night while waiting in his car to board a ferry for England. The car carried British army license plates. The IRA claim for the attack came in a statement to the news media in Britain. “We reiterate our call to civilians and the families of soldiers not to travel with Crown Forces personnel,” the statement said.
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