A final smile before boyfriend faces 'executioner'

A girl wept today as she recalled her boyfriend’s final smile just seconds before he was executed by a hooded gunman in front of horrified partygoers.

Natalie Truesdale, 19, cradled Jonathan Stewart after he was shot in the back of the head by a loyalist in a dramatic escalation of a paramilitary feud involving Johnny “Mad Dog” Adair.

As detectives blamed Adair’s west Belfast unit for the murder, the victim’s distraught girlfriend relived their final moments together before the killer struck.

The couple, who had been together for nearly four years, were with a St Stephen's Night crowd at a friend’s house in the north of the city when the gunman kicked down a door and singled out the innocent victim.

Ms Truesdale said: “I can remember just walking in and looking at him and he just smiled at me.

“I went and sat back down and then the door got booted open and a gunman came in with a balaclava over his face.

“People started screaming and I ran back into the kitchen. Jonathan was lying with blood running out of his face.”

Detectives believe Mr Stewart was shot because he was the nephew of an opponent of Adair’s notorious C Company.

The unit has been locked in a fierce dispute with the Ulster Defence Association ever since its commanders were expelled from the organisation in September.

After weeks of heightening tensions between rival factions in the city, Mr Stewart’s murder saw the feud erupt into a deadly shooting war.

Days later Roy Green, a senior UDA figure with close links to Adair, was shot dead outside a south Belfast pub in a retaliation strike.

Green, 32, a convicted drug dealer, is due to be buried on Wednesday.

Extra police are to be drafted in to make sure there are no clashes between the two sides, but it is understood Adair and his close associate John White are planning to stay away.

No one has been charged with either murder, but a specialist police team has been set up in a bid to catch the terror chiefs amid growing fears of fresh bloodshed.

Detective Superintendent Roy Suitters, the officer leading the hunt for Mr Stewart’s killers, today blamed Adair’s supporters for the shooting.

Urging the public to help police, he said: “We are laying the responsibility for this murder quite firmly at the door of C Company.

“These are people who set themselves up to be protectors of the Protestant people. But in fact, over the last couple of years they have murdered more Protestants than Catholics.”

Forensic tests were tonight still being carried out on clothing found by police which resembles the outfit worn by the gunman in the Jonathan Stewart murder.

The garments were discovered along with weapons, ammunition, masks and drugs during searches of more than 100 derelict and occupied houses near the scene of the killing in Manor Street, it has emerged.

Police are hoping they can link the clothes to suspects including one man they questioned and released without charge.

But with officers desperate for people in loyalist communities to break the wall of silence, Ms Truesdale also pleaded for help to get the men who plotted and carried out the assassination.

Clasping a photo of the couple during a holiday in Tenerife last year, she said: “Please, please help the police to get these people off the streets. I just want justice for him, he didn’t deserve it.

“It’s just a feud which Jonathan should not have been brought into. He didn’t have any paramilitary links, let them fight it out.”

Mr White tonight refused to deny that C Company were responsible for the shooting.

He said: “It’s something you don’t ask questions about, but given the general talk I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case.”