Duffy, 41, offered no plea to two criminal counts of murder and five of attempted murder during his high-security appearance at the court in Larne, an overwhelmingly British Protestant town north of Belfast.
Dozens of relatives and friends from Duffy's hard-line Irish Catholic power base of Lurgan cheered and applauded as he was led from the courtroom — handcuffed to a policeman and surrounded by a half-dozen other armed officers in flak jackets.
Outside the building, police scuffled with a crowd of militant Protestant men shouting anti-IRA insults as Duffy was driven off in an unmarked police car with darkened windows. "Murdering scum!" shouted one man who tried to punch the windows of the passing car.
Duffy had been held for police interrogation since March 14, a week after two masked men with assault rifles fired more than 60 rounds at three off-duty, unarmed soldiers collecting pizzas from two Domino's Pizza delivery men outside their base. Two soldiers died and four people were wounded, including both pizza couriers.
Duffy became the first person charged in connection with the March 7 shooting — the first deadly attack on British soldiers in Northern Ireland since 1997, the year that the outlawed Irish Republican Army called a lasting cease-fire.
The Real IRA, a splinter group opposed to Northern Ireland's peace process, claimed responsibility.
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