The President of Sinn Féin, Mr Gerry Adams, has called on anyone who has information about the murder of Belfast man Robert McCartney, to pass on the information.
The call comes as Sinn Féin is coming under increasing pressure to urge the killers to turn themselves in.
While no-one has yet been charged with Mr McCartney's stabbing, the identities of his killers are widely known.
Mr Adams said those who have no faith in the PSNI should contact the family. He also launched a scathing attack on those who carried out the stabbing and stressed that his party supported the victim's family in their search for justice.
"There are allegations that Robert McCartney was killed by republicans," he said. "I want to make it absolutely clear that no one involved acted as a republican or on behalf of republicans.
"I repudiate this brutal killing in the strongest terms possible."
He added: "No one has any right, as has been claimed, to prevent anyone from helping the McCartney family.
"People with reservations about assisting the PSNI should give any information they might have either to the family, a solicitor or any other authoritative or reputable person or body."
Earlier today, SDLP leader, Mr Mark Durkan, said he would raise the matter of the murder with the US Special Envoy to the North, Mr Mitchell Reiss during a transatlantic trip this week.
A senior IRA man in the Short Strand district of Belfast, where Mr McCartney lived, was among seven men questioned by detectives about the knifing.
The victim and a friend were beaten by up to 15 men who falsely accused them of making derogatory remarks to women in the pub.
"Witnesses have told us the gang attacked them with sewer rods and sticks. Obviously knives were produced and we have also been told there was a gun," Paula McCartney said.
She claimed the bar was forensically cleaned by IRA men who warned witnesses against talking about the January 30 attack. CCTV footage was also allegedly seized from the pub.