Gunman murders Belfast Protestant

A PROTESTANT man was shot dead in south Belfast yesterday evening in an incident which brought the Northern Ireland death toll to 11 in less than a fortnight, writes David McKittrick.

The man, in his forties, was shot in front of his wife as they walked to carry out a cleaning shift at the Northern Ireland electricity service at Stranmillis Road.

An RUC inspector said: 'We have not yet established a motive, but it would appear to be yet another blatant sectarian murder of an innocent family man.' The couple, who lived in another part of south Belfast, had five children.

The couple were walking along a busy main thoroughfare when a car drew up beside them. A gunman got out and shot the man repeatedly, killing him almost instantly.

Responsibility for the killing was claimed by the Irish National Liberation Army, a small breakaway republican grouping.

A Belfast man yesterday won the right to challenge the Home Office's refusal to lift an exclusion order banning him from Britain.

Kevin McQuillan, 34, a former spokesman for the Irish Republican Socialist Party, has been subject to three assassination attempts in Ireland, his counsel, Frances Webber, told Mr Justice Hutchison at the High Court in London.