INLA drugs link suspected in Belfast murder

Police believe the man shot dead today in front of children at a school near Belfast may have  been the victim of a drugs row.

Once again the streets of Belfast are covered in the blood of an innocent victim. Detective Superintendent Roy McComb

Mr Kevin McAlorum, who was thought to be in his late 20s, was ambushed by two gunmen who rammed his car at Derriaghy on the southern outskirts of the city.

The victim, who was linked to the Irish National Liberation Army, had just dropped off a child at Oakwood Integrated Primary School.

He was freed from the Maze jail four years ago under the Belfast Agreement peace deal after serving three years of a 16-year sentence.

Mr McAlorum had been jailed for possession of the gun used to kill INLA "chief of staff" Gino Gallagher in 1996, a shooting which sparked a feud within the group which claimed five lives, including Mr McAlorum's nine-year-old sister Barbara.

She was shot and killed at her north Belfast home in 1996, weeks after Gallagher was murdered.

It is understood detectives probing today's killing were examining a possible drugs motive for the attack.

Witnesses said the victim's body could just be seen slumped in the front seat of a car in the school driveway, which was cordoned off by police.

"The only reason I can think of for anybody coming into a school playground is an innocent reason: to leave children at school, and an integrated school at that," principal Ms Olwin Frost told BBC radio.

A spate of gun and bomb attacks erupted in the east of the city last month in a feud between the LVF and the UVF loyalist groups, but on Sunday mediators said the rival factions had settled their differences.

The shooting came just hours after the body of an Asian woman was found in the boot of a car in north Belfast.

PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde distanced both killings from loyalist paramilitaries. He told members of the Northern Ireland Policing Board: "We have had two murders, neither of which we would link to the loyalist feud which appears to have quietened down.

"They are both being looked at by our new Crime Operations Department. The first few hours, which are crucial, have been thoroughly taken care of."