Police have named a Belfast man believed to have been killed by Irish republican dissidents on Thursday evening.
Joe Reilly, 43, died at a house in the Poleglass area in the west of the city after shots were fired through the window at about 8.15pm.
Jennifer McCann, the Sinn Féin MLA for West Belfast, said there were “distraught scenes” after members of Reilly’s family rushed to be with him while paramedics tried in vain to save his life.
“This brutal killing has achieved nothing other than plunging another family into grief and despair,” McCann said.
Four days before Reilly’s killing, on Sunday evening, another man was shot multiple times in the legs near Reilly’s home on Glenwood Drive. The dissident republican terror group Óglaigh na hÉireann, which opposes the Good Friday agreement, claimed responsibility for this attack.
Stephen Magennis, a local Sinn Féin councillor, said it was likely that Reilly’s murder was also linked to anti-ceasefire republicans.
“The people who did this need to get off the people’s backs,” Magennis said. “This community is very very shocked at what happened here tonight. The mood is very tense, very angry.” He added that his heart went out to Reilly’s partner and their teenage son.
Alex Attwood, a Social Democratic and Labour party MLA, said that such a savage attack had no place in Northern Irish society.
“This is a very small group of people, unrepresentative of the local community, who have now repeatedly taken the law into their own hands,” Attwood said. “The best response that we can make is to provide information to law enforcement and ensure that these individuals are caught, arrested and prosecuted under the full weight of the law.”
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