A petty criminal who was executed with a single bullet to the head had feared loyalist paramilitaries were going to kill him, a Belfast inquest heard today.
Jim Rockett (29) from Wallace Avenue, Lisburn, Co Antrim, was found dead on wasteground at Tyndale Gardens in north Belfast in December 2000.
A sum of more than £725 was found stuffed in his back pocket. His sister, Alice Rae Mairs, said Mr Rockett was paranoid that the Ulster Defence Association was going to get him.
"He told me that the Tiger's Bay UDA were after him," she said. Ms Mairs said that during the time he lived with her, he carried a knife and kept opening and closing blinds. "His actions got on my nerves and he moved into a flat of his own but we remained close," she said.
Outside the court, Ms Mairs said her brother believed he had been blamed for burning down the home of a UDA commander in the Tiger's Bay area of north Belfast.
She condemned reports at the time that her brother was a drug dealer who had been carrying more than £2,000 in cash at the time of his murder. "I just want to put it across that he didn't have thousands in his pocket. He had £725."
Supt Arnold McAllister, who led the murder investigation, told the inquest that no one had been charged and as yet no clear motive had been established.
The officer said that Mr Rockett had been shot with a blank firing pistol that had been converted to fire 9mm ammunition.
A bullet was found nearby that suggested that he had been shot at the scene. Supt McAllister said the dead man had a lengthy prison record and was well known for his involvement in ordinary crime.
He had just been released from prison a month before after serving a year for burglary and false imprisonment in the Carrickfergus area of Co Antrim.