The Real IRA was responsible for the murder of an alleged drug dealer in a bar eight years ago, an inquest was told today.
Brendan "Speedy" Fegan was shot at least 14 times in the Hermitage Bar in Newry, Co Down, in May 1999 - three months after he survived being shot three times in Belfast.
No one has yet been charged with the killing and the murder of the 24-year-old has been passed to the Police Service of Northern Ireland's Retrospective Review Unit for re-examination.
In a statement read to the Newry inquest, Detective Sergeant Michael Hamilton said the killing had been subject only to a limited review and will be formally reviewed in 2010.
But he said: "It has been established the victim was murdered by the Real IRA as a result of his apparent drug dealing activities."
The inquest was told that Fegan, who came from Newry but had a home some miles away in Moira, had been officially warned by police that he was under threat in both December 1997 and March 1999.
His home was petrol-bombed in November 1998 and he was shot and injured in February 1999. Nevertheless the dead man's mother, Sheila Fegan said her son had never expressed worries to her about his personal safety.
"He reassured me everything was all right," she said. She said she had seen her son a few hours before he was shot dead and he had been in good form.
Witnesses told the inquest that Fegan drove out of Newry with friends on the morning of Sunday May 9th 1999 to watch a horse trotting race held over two miles of the dual carriageway between Newry and Warrenpoint.
There was a dispute over who had won the race and the crowd headed to the Hermitage Bar with a video of the event to try to determine who the winner was.
Around 100 people were in the bar and a statement from a witness Leonard Burke, who had been with the dead man, said that about 15 minutes before two gunmen walked into the bar there had been a phone call to the pub and a shout went up "Speedy, Speedy, there is a phone call for you".
He said Fegan had gone to the bar to take the call, spoken for about a minute and then hung up. Witnesses said soon afterwards two men walked in and headed straight for their target.
Brendan Markey, who was in the pub after the race, said: "They knew where they were going. They went directly over to Brendan." A post mortem examination carried out hours after the killing showed that Mr Fegan had been shot nine times in the head and at least five times in the body.
The deputy state pathologist also found three bullets still lodged in Mr Fegan's chest and arm from the gun attack three months before.