There was uproar in a Belfast court today as a former associate of Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Adair was cleared of murder.
Mr Justice McLaughlin told Belfasrt Crown Court that as he considered the prosecution evidence "so weak" and could place "no reliable foundation" upon it, he found 25-year-old Wayne Stephen Dowie not guilty of murdering loyalist feud victim Jonathon Stewart.
As he announced his verdict, friends and family of 22-year-old Mr Stewart jumped to their feet, banging the thick glass separating the public gallery from the court room as security staff blocked the doors leading to the court.
Outside the court members of the angry group were heard to say that Dowie was a "dead man" who "would live longer" had he been convicted.
Mr Stewart was shot seven times, five in the head from near point blank range by a masked gunman as he sat at the kitchen table during a party in a house in Manor Street. Dowie was later picked out of a masked police line-up some seven months after the murder.
Dowie who was arrested and interviewed at the time but later released without charge after his former housemate gave him an alibi.
Mr Justice McLaughlin said it was clear his murder was a "calculated execution carried out by an accomplished assassin with no regard for human life" with the "so-called mainstream UDA...demonstrating murderous ruthlessness in it’s dealings".
He told the court that in the "widespread panic" the murder caused, police suspicions fell on
The judge told the court that although there were a number of people at the party, "none could give meaningful evidence". Mr Justice McLaughlin said there could "can be little doubt" that the gunman intended to kill Mr Stewart, adding that one of the first shots that hit him in the head "was nothing less than devastating".
Dowie, from Manor Street in north Belfast, had always denied murdering Mr Stewart on December 27 2002 during the bitter and bloody feud between mainstream UDA and Adair’s breakaway ‘C’ Company.