The State Pathologist is to re-examine clothes worn by John Carthy when he was shot dead in April 2000 to try to establish if he was hit by five rather than four bullets as previously thought.
Prof John Harbison agreed it was "easier to explain" a wound to Mr Carthy's right calf by considering the possibility of a fifth bullet.
However, he conceded, the wound may have been caused by one of the four other bullets passing through Mr Carthy's thigh and re-entering at his calf.
To shed further light on the subject, he said, he would have to re-examine Mr Carthy's jeans, which he agreed to do before resuming his evidence today.
For a second day running, Prof Harbison was asked to stand in the witness box and simulate on his own body the likely trajectory of the four shots fired by the Garda Emergency Response Unit at Mr Carthy from behind.
He said said that for the wound to Mr Carthy's calf to have come from this source, his leg would have to have been "raised considerably" in a "goose-step" position. It would be "easier" to explain the calf wound as a "fifth wound" rather than having to "contort" the body to such an extent as to have one of the bullets exiting and re-entering the body.
Asked was it easier to explain the nature of wound by considering the possibility of fifth bullet, Prof Harbison replied: "I think it is." However, he stressed, it was not an easy wound to explain, having earlier described it as "diagnostically destitute".
Prof Harbison, who carried out a post mortem on the body of Mr Carthy for the inquest, said it was "very unlikely" the calf wound was caused by a bullet ricocheting off the road because a hard surface such as that would have distorted the bullet and changed the nature of the wound.
He noted no bullets had been recovered at the scene to help establish whether or not there was distortion or a possible ricochet.
He added it was "unlikely, if not impossible" that the calf wound had been inflicted by a bullet fired from in front of Mr Carthy. The shot could only have come from the front if Mr Carthy was running or walking backwards and the evidence did not point to that, he said.
Prof Harbison noted the wound "certainly did not look like a bullet wound" but rather seemed to be two superficial wounds that "interconnect". It was possible the wound was caused by a "sharp, rod-like object" or other piercing implement.
However, the "most likely" cause was a bullet, he said, even though the "glancing-type" soft-tissue injury was not typical of one.
