Shooting victim 'may have met killer in a bar'

A man shot dead in church grounds on the border may have met his killer in a bar less than an hour before he was assassinated, it was revealed today.

Detectives probing the murder of Andrew Burns in Co Donegal last week have established he was at the Waterfront Bar, in Strabane, Co Tyrone, just before his death.

They are retracing his last known movements exactly one week after he was seized, driven across the border and shot twice before being dumped and left to die.

Police in the Republic and in the North, working together on the case, are keen to gather vital clues from Mr Burns’ short time in the pub on the town’s Main Street.

“That’s crucial, it’s critical to try and get some information about what happened in the bar that evening,” said Chief Superintendent Terry McGinn, heading up the Garda investigation in the Republic.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland will be asking people at the pub tonight if they recall seeing Mr Burns there last Tuesday.

Investigating officers in Co Donegal will be staging checkpoints around the same time at Doneyloop, the small rural village where he was found dead by a group of children.

He had been shot twice in the upper body, in the car park of St Columba’s Church before crawling out onto the main road and dying.

CCTV footage from both sides of the border is also being examined.

“We’re trying to trace his last movements,” said Chief Super McGinn.

“We are really appealing for information from anybody who may have been in the Waterfront Bar, who would have been in the area of the Main Street in Strabane - between 6.45pm and 7pm.

“And from anybody who was travelling on the road between Claudy, Fern and Doneyloop between 6.30pm and 7pm.

“We have a positive sighting that he was in the Waterfront Bar between 6.30pm and 7pm in the evening in question.

“We also a have sighting at 6.45pm on the Main Street in Strabane.”

Mr Burns’ father, Lawrence, said he dropped him off at his flat in the town’s Upper Main Street at 6.45pm – just 45 minutes before he was found dead in Co Donegal.

It is believed he went into his flat first before going to the bar and detectives are investigating whether he met or was contacted by his killer while there.

Chief Super McGinn confirmed dissident republican involvement in the killing was one – but not the only – line of inquiry.

“We’re keeping an open mind on the motive for this crime at present. Obviously we will be looking into all his associates,” she added.

The INLA blamed a small dissident grouping styling itself Oglaigh Na hEireann for the murder.

They claimed Mr Burns, a painter and decorator from Drum Road in Strabane, was accused of being a British agent by his former associates.