Family and friends mourn murdered journalist

The funeral of a Northern Ireland journalist gunned down in front of his wife by loyalist paramilitaries will take place today.

As a senior police chief pledged every effort would be made to bring the killers of Sunday World reporter Martin O’Hagan to justice, his grief-stricken family, friends and colleagues were preparing to lay him to rest.

RUC Assistant Chief Constable Stephen White said he was appalled by the ‘‘disgraceful and callous’’ murder.

‘‘I want to reassure the family of Mr O’Hagan that the investigation will be thorough and painstaking,’’ he said.

Mr O’Hagan, 51, was shot dead on Friday night as he walked home with his wife Marie after a quiet night out at his local pub in Lurgan, Co Armagh.

The Loyalist Volunteer Force, a paramilitary group in Mid-Ulster with close associations to the Ulster Defence Association, is heavily suspected of shooting him dead.

Both organisations use the Red Hand Defenders, which claimed responsibility for the killing, as a cover name.

A detective source said that the LVF was almost certainly behind the attack.

‘‘Certainly it is one very important strand of our investigation. We are following a number of definite lines of inquiry.’’

The murder inquiry is also investigating a ‘‘veiled threat’’ made towards Mr O’Hagan by an individual close to the LVF a few days ago.

The man told the journalist: ‘‘We have clocked you walking home. We know your route’’.

This may have led Mr O’Hagan and his wife to vary their route home on Friday night but this did not deter his killers.

But his close friend and National Union of Journalists colleague Kevin Cooper has insisted Mr O’Hagan was unaware of any increased threat to his life.

‘‘Martin presently had no sense that he was under threat other than the fact that obviously he was under the attention of both republican and loyalist paramilitaries for stories he had done in the past,’’ he said.

‘‘It would be me he would turn to if that would be the case.’’

Known for his tenacious pursuit of paramilitaries and drug dealers, the fearless reporter had a history of run-ins with the then LVF chief Billy Wright, who was himself gunned down by republicans in the Maze Prison near Lisburn, Co Antrim in December 1998.

In 1993, he was forced to flee Northern Ireland after receiving death threats from Wright, whom he had dubbed ‘‘King Rat’’ and had written a series of exposes about the murderous activities of his gang, the ‘‘Ratpack’’.

He returned after the loyalist ceasefires, but it is believed that colleagues of Wright may have finally carried out his wishes.

His distraught wife recalled his last moments as the gunmen opened fire.

‘‘I can’t really remember what happened,’’ Marie O’Hagan said.

‘‘People tell me Martin shoved me into the hedge and used his own body to try to shield me.

‘‘It’s coming back to me in flashes but the fact that I wasn’t shot dead or wounded speaks for itself.’’

As the reporter lay dying on the pavement he told his wife to ‘‘get an ambulance’’.

One of his three daughters, Ciara who is due to be married in a few weeks time, was passing by in a car when she saw her father slumped on the ground.

‘‘I thought he had maybe tripped and fell,’’ she said.

‘‘I jumped out of the car. Then I saw the blood on his shirt.

‘‘I grabbed his jacket and tried to wrap it round him to keep him warm.’’

Sunday World northern editor Jim McDowell said his colleague had remained courageous to the end to ensure his wife escaped injury.

‘‘Marty threw Marie into a hedge and shielded her with his body as the gunmen fired. He took two of the bullets,’’ Mr McDowell said.

Detectives last night made a fresh appeal for anyone in the Carnegie Inn on Friday night or anyone who saw Mr 0’Hagan and his wife after they left the bar.

‘‘We know that the gunman was a passenger in a silver-coloured car and a silver Ford Orion was found burning a short distance away at Glenavon Lane.

‘‘We also want to hear from anyone who saw a silver Subaru in the area.’’

Door-to-door inquiries were continuing today along the route taken by the couple.

In the next few days, detectives are expected to visit the Sunday World offices in Belfast to gain access to Mr O’Hagan’s computers.

It is believed that a number of stories he had been working on lately could give a clue to who carried out the murder.