Michael Stone, a 53-year-old loyalist paramilitary on trial for allegedly attempting to murder Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, has told the court that his November 24, 2006, assault on the Northern Irish parliament, in which he carried explosives and a fake gun, was in fact “an act of performance art” meant to look like a terrorist act, the BBC reports.    

Stone says that he was not looking to destabilize the peace process, but instead to help it along by staging a protest against the political deadlock that existed at the time.

Stone was convicted of triple murder and jailed for life for a 1988 gun and grenade attack on a funeral for fallen IRA members. He was released in 2000, under the terms of the Good Friday peace agreement.

He described his more recent attack as "a comic parody of my former self. I would rather be remembered as an eccentric artist that got it wrong in performance art than for my past, when I did some terrible things."

He said that each item he was carrying had symbolic significance, such as a sponge inside the butt of the fake gun that was meant to symbolize the "sponging unionists"; a bird-shaped pair of scissors were a "begrudging" symbol of Irish republicanism rising from the flames, and a badge on his jacket was a mark of respect for "fallen comrades."

Stone told the court he tried to keep everything in a "monochrome pallet" of black, white, and gray. "The symbolism of that was as in life, not everything is black and white — my perceived attack is a gray area, that it was an attack of art, an artistic protest."