GARDAI SAY IRA MAY HAVE SHOT WITNESS OF KILLING

Gardai are examining the possibility that the IRA shot the key witness
to a brutal killing, writes JIM CUSACK, Security Correspondent.

Mr Alan Byrne, who was shot and seriously injured in Dublin's south
inner city yesterday morning, was with Mr Josey Dwyer, a heroin addict
and AIDS sufferer, when Mr Dwyer was beaten to death by a mob nearly
three years ago.

The men were close friends, and Mr Byrne later spoke out against his
killers. Mr Byrne has since managed to give up his own heroin
addiction and has been working full-time as a warehouse-man in
Walkinstown.

Garda sources suspect Mr Byrne was shot because he was cooperating
with gardai investigating his friend's killing.

At the time of Mr Dwyer's death it was learned that at an IRA meeting
in the Liberties it had been decided to step up republican involvement
in community activity against suspected drug dealers. Within a few
days Mr Dwyer, a known heroin addict in the advanced stages of
AIDS-related illness, was beaten by a mob. He weighed only six stone
and succumbed quickly to internal injuries from being kicked in the
chest when he was on the ground.

While he was dying he warned local children to stay away from him
because he was concerned they would be infected with his blood. He was
reported as having shouted: "Keep away from me, girls. I've got AIDS."

After press reports linking the IRA to the anti-drugs activity in the
south inner city, it is believed the republicans withdrew from
involvement in violence against suspected dealers for a time.

However, gardai say the local IRA has again returned to anti-drugs
activity and has been involved in shootings and intimidation.

There are suspicions that republicans were responsible for the murder
of a man from the north inner city who gardai believe was a minor drug
dealer. Mr Gerard Moran (35) had previously been involved in fights
with anti-drug campaigners.

Mr Moran was shot in the thigh with a shotgun when he was delivering
Chinese food in Drumcondra last November. His killer may have intended
only to seriously injure him by shooting him in the leg, but the blast
severed a main artery and he died from blood loss and shock.

Gardai also believe IRA members were behind other shootings and
widespread intimidation of suspected drug dealers in Dublin's inner
city last year.

Republican gunmen are thought to have carried out two attacks in the
Crumlin area, when gunshots were fired through the front doors and
windows of two houses within a short period at Downpatrick Road and
Sundrive Road on one evening last July. No one was injured.

Local Garda sources say there has been considerable involvement in the
"anti-drug" movement in the south inner city in recent years, with
particularly high-profile activity by republicans in the past year.
They say intimidating and attacking suspected drug dealers is part of
a campaign to increase support for the IRA's political wing, Sinn Fein.

A similar campaign of beatings and intimidation took place in Kerry

from late 1997 to early last year. Local Garda sources

said the Kerry anti-drugs activity was coordinated by the local IRA
leader.

The IRA carried out a much more violent campaign against alleged drug
dealers in Northern Ireland. Between the calling of the first IRA
ceasefire in August 1994 and 1998, the IRA killed nine men suspected
of involvement in drugs in Belfast.

The last killing was of Mr Brendan Campbell in Belfast in February
last year. That killing, a day after another IRA murder of a leading
south Belfast loyalist, Mr Robert Dougan, led to Sinn Fein's temporary
expulsion from the talks that led to the Belfast Agreement.

Yesterday's shooting follows the revelation, during the trial of the
men who killed Det Garda Jerry McCabe, that the IRA had intimidated a
witness. The State reduced the charge of murder against four IRA
members to manslaughter after a main witness in the case, Mr Patrick
Harty, a farmer, refused to give evidence.