The father of Paul Quinn (21), who was clubbed to death by eight men on a Monaghan farm last month, has accused Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams of blackening his son's name with allegations of criminality and rushing to the defence of the Provisional IRA, who he believes was involved in his son's murder.
Speaking after a meeting of some 50 locals in his home near Cullyhanna, Stephen Quinn said Adams' suggestion that his son was a criminal had caused the family a huge amount of pain.
"It is very hard for us to understand why anyone would want to tell lies about Paul. He was just an ordinary young lad, no angel but no criminal. They took Paul away from us and damaged his body terribly. But why do they want to damage his memory?"
Two days after the killing, Mr Adams said: "this murder is in our view linked to fuel smuggling involving criminals . . . There is no republican involvement whatsoever in this man's murder and all of us should be careful that we don't end up playing politics with what is a dreadful, criminal action."
Yesterday Mr Quinn challenged Mr Adams to put information about his son's criminality in the public domain or withdraw the allegation. He also dismissed the Sinn Féin leader's continuing insistence that republicans were not involved.
"Gerry Adams says he consulted people in south Armagh and could certify no republicans were involved. He didn't ask us or we could have told him different - so could anyone around here."
Sinn Féin has not met the Quinn family since the murder and no party representative attended the funeral.
Yesterday local Sinn Féin MP Conor Murphy said the accusation by IMC member John Grieve that there was Provisional involvement in the murder was "utterly devoid of fact" and evidence rather than speculation was needed to convict the real killers.
Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness also repeated that he was confident that IRA members had not been involved.
At the meeting on Monday night in Cullyhanna, locals from Armagh and nearby Monaghan formed the Quinn Family Support Group. In a statement, the group demanded that the "Provo murder machine in south Armagh be dismantled forever" and claimed that "public safety in south Armagh is at risk" while the command structure which ordered Paul Quinn's execution remained in place.
"We deplore attempts to label people who have publicly expressed concerns about his murder as 'enemies of the peace process'," said the statement.
The group is being chaired by Jim McAllister, a former Sinn Féin local councillor, who has acted as a spokesman for the family since the murder, along with local SDLP councillor Geraldine Donnelly.
The group wants meetings with senior politicians north and south of the Border and an independent body to document previous local cases of "punishment beatings".