Suspect charged with 2007 double murder wants case to be thrown out

A MAN charged with a double murder in Belfast 13 years ago has been given a date for his legal bid to have the prosecution dismissed.

Lawyers for 36-year-old Gerard Lagan will go to court next week to argue that he has no case to answer on allegations of killing Edward Burns and Joe Jones.

The bodies of the two men were discovered hours apart on March 12, 2007.

Burns (36) was found shot in the head at Bog Meadows, close to the Falls Road in the west of the city.

A short time later 38-year-old Jones was discovered battered to

Edward Burns and (right) Joe Jones were killed on same day 13 years ago

death in an alleyway in the Ardoyne district.

Lagan, with an address at Butler Walk in Belfast, was extradited from the Republic in October last year.

He remains in custody pending the outcome of a challenge to the strength of evidence against him before any trial.

At Belfast Magistrates Court it was confirmed that a three-day preliminary investigation will begin next Monday.

A judge was told that eight witnesses, including police officers and other experts, will be giving evidence remotely.

They are expected to testify about business documents and telecommunications evidence in the case.

During a previous hearing it was claimed that Lagan was involved in luring the victims to their deaths.

Mobile telephone calls, cellsite analysis and eyewitness evidence allegedly links him to the murders as part of a joint enterprise with other suspects.

The prosecution contended that within hours of the killings he crossed the border and began a new life.

Burns was shot after receiving a phone call and leaving his home, telling an acquaintance that someone needed help but that he had a bad feeling about it.

Another man believed to have been at the scene of the killing was shot in the neck with the same gun before fleeing the scene and getting a taxi to hospital, the court heard.

Lagan is not suspected of being the gunman in either attack.

Defence lawyers have stressed the case against him is circumstantial, with no forensic evidence linking him to either murder scene.

Assertions that he left behind a life in Belfast to move to the Republic after the killings are also disputed.