A Magherafelt councillor has said he believes the IRA was responsible for the murder of Mr Patrick Gerard Quinn in a bar in the Co Derry village on Friday night.
Mr Quinn (32) was singled out and shot dead by two men in the Depot Bar in Union Road at about 11 p.m. on Friday night. He is said to have been previously ordered to leave his home in Coalisland, Co Tyrone, by the IRA in connection with drug-dealing.
Mr John Junkin, an Ulster Unionist councillor on Magherafelt District Council, said he was told the deceased knew the men who shot him.
"My information was that two men in white overalls entered the pub and picked him out and shot him and I was told that they were the Provisional IRA," he said.
It is understood that Mr Quinn told the men he was sorry and asked them not to kill him.
Mr Junkin said the IRA was still active because weapons had not been decommissioned.
"Where those arms are able to be brought out from secure, dry bunkers then the IRA are able to kill anyone any time and hold political parties or party leaders to ransom at any time they choose," he said.
The Sinn Fein Assembly member for Mid-Ulster, Mr John Kelly, would not comment on claims that the IRA carried out the attack.
He said: "My best information is that it was not sectarian and didn't have a loyalist paramilitary involvement."
Mr Kelly said the murder had to be looked at in the context of drug abuse in rural areas in his constituency, which had become a major problem due to what he called "itinerant" drug-dealers coming from urban areas.
"There is serious drug activity and drug-pushing going on," he said.
Meanwhile, the Rev William McCrea, the DUP Mid-Ulster Assembly member, said he believed Mr Quinn was shot by IRA members operating under the title Direct Action Against Drugs.
"It is clear the Provos are going to use the name of convenience `Direct Action Against Drugs' to once again cover another murder, but the unionist community are fully aware of the sheer hypocrisy of the IRA that gains most of its money through racketeering and drugs," he said.
