A round-up of today's other stories in brief...
Defence lawyer claims attack on boy in Ballymena not sectarian
The attack on Ballymena schoolboy Mickey-Bo McIlveen, who later died from head injuries, wasn't "sectarian", but more like a "fight in a schoolyard", a lawyer claimed yesterday.
The claim was made by defence QC Brian McCartney for Aaron Wallace (20), from Moat Road, one of four Ballymena youths on trial for the 15-year-old's murder in May 2006.
Mr McCartney was questioning a friend of Mickey-Bo's about what was happening and what he could have seen. He put it to the schoolboy's now 17-year-old friend, who can't be named because of his age, that it had not been "an all-out confrontation on sectarian lines". He asked: "Why did you escape without a scratch on you? They knew you were a Catholic. Why didn't they attack you?"
The witness replied: "How am I supposed to know? Ask them" (referring to the defendants).
Mr McCartney then suggested that what had occurred was "a personal disagreement, brought about through alcohol and adolescent aggression, and that is why McIlveen was pursued".
"I know what I seen and I did see him putting the feet into Michael," said the witness, who told police he'd seen Wallace kick Mickey-Bo "about 10 times".
Real nail bombs can be artistic props, lecturer tells Stone trial
A senior art lecturer yesterday said that having real nail bombs could "come under the ambit" of performance art as long as there was no intention of setting them off.
Giving evidence at the Belfast Crown Court trial of Michael Stone, Mr Peter Bond, a senior art lecturer at St Martin's College in London said that if an individual had such bombs and intended to light them, "not for one moment" could that be construed as performance art.
However he did agree with the suggestion from defence QC Orlando Pownall that if the person had "no intention whatsoever of lighting them" that could be interpreted as artistic.
Stone denies attempting to murder Sinn Féin MLA's Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness as well as 12 other charges of possessing nail and pipe bombs with intent to endanger life, possessing three knives, an axe and a garotte, having an imitation firearm with intent to commit an offence on November 24th, 2006.
Stone claimed the whole incident was performance art, designed to send a "proverbial rocket up the backsides" of the politicians .
Mr Pownall asked the artist if the use of fake weapons was "wholly outside what you would consider to be the legitimate scope of performance art". Mr Bond replied that the use of weapons in art had a "long tradition from the Shakespearean sword fight" to the present day.
Banker tells of searching for kidnapped wife
A banker forced to smuggle £26.5 million out of the Northern Bank in Belfast after his wife was kidnapped relived in court yesterday the moments when he could not find her after the robbery.
Assistant manager Kevin McMullan was told by the gang that she would be murdered if the robbery went wrong, but if all was well she would be left at the west Belfast home of a fellow banker, Chris Ward, whose family was also held hostage during the December 2004 heist.
But when he drove to the home, his wife Kyran was not there, he told Belfast Crown Court. Two members of the kidnap gang were in the house.
Eventually they told him his wife was at his home at Loughinisland, Co Down. When he arrived "there were armed police all over the place".
He added: "The told me Kyran had been found in a forest, was suffering from hypothermia, cuts and bruises and had been taken to the Downe Hospital in Downpatrick - I went there to see her." Mrs McMullan had been tied up and dumped in the Co Down forest and eventually managed to free herself and raise the alarm.
Mr McMullan spent a second full day in the witness box detailing the robbery at the trial of Chris Ward, who is the only person charged in connection with the robbery.
The 26-year-old denies robbery and two charges of abducting Mr and Mrs McMullan. Mr McMullan was in charge of the Northern Bank Cash Centre in Donegall Square on the day of the robbery while his boss was on holiday.