THE MAN shot dead at his home in Co Donegal on Thursday night had been ordered by vigilantes to leave his native Derry six months ago but had recently defied the ban by returning there to visit.
Gardaí believe his refusal to stay away from the city was the reason he was murdered by an anti-drugs republican group that had initially threatened his life.
Andrew Allen, a 24-year-old from Top of the Hill in Derry’s Waterside, was shot dead at a house he was living in at Links View Park, Lisfannon, near Buncrana, on Thursday night.
It was the third gun murder of the year and followed the shooting dead of 16-year-old Melanie McCarthy McNamara in Tallaght, Dublin, on Tuesday night, and of Alan McNally in Finglas, Dublin, last Thursday week.
A number of men tried to break through the hall door of Mr Allen’s house at about 9.30pm on Thursday. When they were unable to get through the locked door, they shot through a downstairs bedroom window, fatally wounding the father of two.
The men then sped from the scene in a stolen silver Vauxhall Cavalier in the direction of Derry. They turned off at Fahan, where they set the car on fire in the townland of Ballyhone.
Gardaí believe they had another car waiting there to take them away. The same sources said the killing was well-planned, that the murder weapon was a handgun and that those involved intended not to wound but to kill Mr Allen.
Vigilante group Republican Action Against Drugs (RAAD) are the main suspects. Made up of former members of the IRA and INLA, it has no political aims and is not affiliated to a political party.
Mr Allen was one of six people who last August received a death threat from RAAD, which has “expelled” about 40 people from their homes in Derry over the past two to three years.
Accused of drug-dealing by the group, he had fled immediately and moved to Donegal. However, he had made a number of visits to Derry, and these appear to be the reason for his murder.
The PSNI has not ruled out a link between the killing and two gun attacks in Derry about 30 minutes before Mr Allen was shot.
Masked men entered two separate bookmakers’ shops, firing shots into poker machines and a television. No one was injured in either attack.
Supt Kevin English of Buncrana Garda station, who is heading the murder investigation, appealed to anyone who may have noticed a car parked close to Church Brae, Fahan, where the gang’s original car was set on fire, to contact gardaí.
“Somebody may have seen this second car that was left or persons who were acting suspiciously. We would ask anyone to contact the incident room in Buncrana.”
Foyle SDLP MP Mark Durkan said the murder was a “throwback to the very worst of the past”. “The perpetrators have absolutely no mandate and no support,” he said.
RAAD has emerged over the past three years to target those it brands drug dealers, mainly in the Derry area.
It has shot at least 15 people in so-called “punishment” attacks and has also targeted dozens of homes and cars with pipe bombs. Mr Allen’s murder would be the organisation’s first.
Waterside parish priest Rev Michael Canny said death threats from RAAD had forced nearly 40 men to leave Derry since 2009.
“RAAD now claim to be the city’s true law enforcers, just like the IRA in the bad old days,” he said. “They claim that in the absence of the IRA they’re obliged to continue this vigilante action. But nobody in their right minds wants this law of the jungle.”
The dead man’s girlfriend was in the house at the time of the attack but was uninjured. His children were not in the house when their father was shot.
