Ex- IRA leader killed in Belfast

Dublin, May 5: The central Irish Republican Army figure in one of the outlawed group’s most notorious killings has been shot to death in Belfast, residents and the police said Tuesday.

No group claimed responsibility for shooting Terence “Jock” Davison at short range outside his home in the Markets neighbourhood of south- central Belfast.

Davison was a Belfast IRA commander when he allegedly ordered henchmen in 2005 to attack a man, Robert McCartney, who had insulted him in a pub. McCartney’s sisters took their demands for justice all the way to the White House, and their embarrassing campaign helped spur the IRA to renounce violence and disarm later that year.

Davison was charged with McCartney’s murder, but was acquitted in 2008.

McCartney’s sisters accused him of making a throat- slashing gesture to his IRA colleagues in the crowded pub. McCartney, 33, was fatal- ly stabbed outside the pub. IRA members confiscated the pub’s surveillance video footage, cleaned up the forensic evidence and ordered pub- goers to tell police nothing or risk IRA retaliation, according to the police and testimony in court.

IRA representatives later met McCartney’s four sisters and offered to have the IRA members responsible killed as punishment, an offer the sisters rejected. Davison and two other men were expelled from the underground group.

Davison’s body lay in the street Tuesday outside his home until the police covered it with a sheet, then constructed a tent around the scene of the killing to preserve forensic evidence.

Most IRA members are observing a 1997 ceasefire in support of Northern Ireland’s peace process. But splinter groups continue to mount bombings and shootings and feuds within their fractured ranks can turn deadly.