The family of a 21-year-old man shot dead in north Belfast on Saturday rejected claims that his killing was linked to the ongoing loyalist feud and have called for no retaliation.
Mr David Greer's body was found in Mountcollyer Street with gunshot wounds to the chest following reports of a disturbance among UDA members in nearby Mileriver Street on Saturday night. Leading figures in the Ulster Democratic Party, the political wing of the UDA, said Mr Greer was a UDA member and blamed the UVF for his death.
Mr Greer's family said yesterday they did not believe he had been singled out but was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. According to his grandmother, Ms Sarah Renwick, he arrived in Mountcollyer Street just when an argument among his friends was breaking up. UVF members are believed to have turned up shortly afterwards.
"He was just unfortunate. I want to make an appeal for no reprisals - I have a grandson dead and I wouldn't want to wish that on anybody else," Ms Renwick added. Mr Greer's mother said she wanted no paramilitary displays at his funeral tomorrow.
The RUC said it did not believe the shooting was linked directly to the UDA-UVF feud, which has centred mainly on the Shankill area but on occasion spilled into loyalist enclaves of north Belfast such as Mountcollyer. Three men have been killed and more than 200 families forced from their homes as a result of the feud.
In follow-up searches on Sunday night, police seized a heavy machine gun, explosives and ammunition at blocks of flats in the nearby Mount Vernon area.