Mr Daniel McGurk, who was killed in a suspected "Real IRA" shooting in west Belfast on Sunday morning, was murdered because he stood up to "thugs and drug dealers", according to his mother.
Mr McGurk, a 35-year-old father of six children, was gunned down in the living room of his home in Ross Road in the Lower Falls around 10.30 a.m. on Sunday by two men whom provisional republican, nationalist and security sources said were from the "Real IRA".
The chief investigating officer, Det Supt Hugo Frew, confirmed yesterday that the Police Service of Northern Ireland was trying to determine whether dissident republicans were involved.
The dead man's mother, Mrs Mary McGurk ( 73), who was trying to comfort Mr McGurk's distraught widow Patsy yesterday, said he was killed because he stood up to his attackers. She said his killers were drunk when they shot him.
Mrs McGurk and Det Supt Frew separately detailed how Mr McGurk was assaulted last Sunday week by a number of men in west Belfast. According to Mrs McGurk, her son was badly beaten by about 14 men who assaulted him with "hammers and hatchets".
Mrs McGurk said the assault was caused by Mr McGurk's decision to intervene on behalf of a friend of his brother. She said the friend had urinated outside a local house and this prompted a number of men to threaten the man, but her son defended him. Subsequently the group of men came back and attacked Mr McGurk so viciously that he ended up in the nearby Royal Victoria Hospital. "Afterwards, two of them told him they were sorry and said it never should have happened, 'you did not deserve the beating that you got'," Mrs McGurk told the BBC.
The Sinn Féin president, Mr Gerry Adams, said he was shocked and outraged at the killing. Former SDLP Assembly member, Dr Joe Hendron, described the killing of Mr McGurk as murder most foul. "Anyone with specific information should give it to the police," Dr Hendron said.