Social development minister Margaret Ritchie has received a loyalist death threat days before she was due to withdraw government funding for a loyalist project over the UDA's refusal to decommission, it has emerged.
On Friday a male caller telephoned Mrs Ritchie's private office at the Department for Social Development (DSD) headquarters in Belfast and warned that she would be killed unless she withdrew her threat to axe £1.2 million government funding for the Conflict Transformation Initiative (CTI).
On August 10 Mrs Ritchie warned that she would cut-off the CTI's funding unless the UDA began decommissioning within 60 days.
That deadline is due to expire tonight (Tuesday) although the UDA has already said it will not decommission.
On Sunday Mrs Ritchie admitted that she had come under personal and political pressure to drop her decommissioning deadline.
However she stopped short of revealing the fact that a threat had been made against her own life just days before.
Two weeks ago loyalist posters labelling the SDLP as the 'Sectarian Demonisation of Loyalist People' were erected outside Ms Ritchie's constituency office in Downpatrick.
A police spokesman last night confirmed that it is investigating the threat against Mrs Ritchie's life.
"We cannot comment on specific details of a person's security or an investigation," he said.
"We can confirm that a report is being prepared for the PPS after police carried out investigations following a complaint of a malicious phone call."
Both the SDLP and DSD have refused to comment on the threat.
UDA sources last night denied involvement in the threat.
Meanwhile Ulster Political Research Group spokesman Frankie Gallagher yesterday claimed that Ms Ritchie's decommissioning deadline could 'derail' the peace process.
Mr Gallagher, who is also employed by the CTI, warned that Ms Ritchie's insistence on UDA decommissioning could lead to a "disastrous place".
Warning that the SDLP minister could not dictate the timing of UDA decommissioning, he said: "Everybody is trying to double their efforts to maintain the peace process and if this derails the peace process because a minister connects social need with decommissioning, then we are in a disastrous place."
However Ms Ritchie's SDLP colleague John Dallat called for her to press ahead with the withdrawal of the project's funding.
"Other members of the assembly seem to feel that it isn't necessary for these thugs to be getting rid of their guns," he said.
"I can't see how you can run a parallel system of democracy and terror groups at the same time."
A DSD spokesman said that Mrs Ritchie would not make any decision on the CTI funding until she returns from a planned trip to Brussels on Thursday.
The spokesman insisted that any withdrawal of funding would be redirected to other loyalist community projects.
