Sinn Fein woman shot dead in bar

A woman Sinn Fein by-election candidate was shot dead last night in a crowded Belfast hotel bar packed with students.

Sheena Campbell, the party's candidate in the Upper Bann by- election in May 1990, was among three people shot by a lone masked gunman in the York Hotel on Botanic Avenue.

Ms Campbell, 29, from Craigavon, was a law student at Queen's University, Belfast. She was taken to hospital suffering from a neck wound but died shortly afterwards. The two people wounded, but not seriously, were a man in his 20s and a woman in her 30s, who are also students at the university. They were taken to hospital.

The gunman walked into the hotel shortly before 7pm and is believed to have fired four shots inside the bar where there were about 30 people drinking.

'We cannot say what was behind it at this stage,' the Royal Ulster Constabulary said last night. In the past, students have usually been immune from Ulster's violence.