A REPUBLICAN terrorist group promised not to harm or intimidate a witness who agreed to testify against one of its members in a murder trial, because it was “horrified and embarrassed” by the killing.

The Continuity IRA (CIRA), which has threatened to murder Catholics who cooperate with the police, instructed its members not to harm Damien O’Neill.

O’Neill had agreed to give evidence against Gerard Mackin, a dissident terrorist convicted in Dublin last week of murdering Edward Burns, 35, another republican dissident, during a feud in Belfast last year.

Mackin, a 26-year-old CIRA member from Whiterock in west Belfast, fled to Dublin after killing Burns in March 2007.

He opted to stand trial in Dublin under the terms of a law that allows suspects to be tried in the republic for offences committed in Britain or Northern Ireland rather than face extradition.

Gardai and the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) had offered to protect O’Neill, who was shot by Mackin after he witnessed the murder of Burns.

However, police were told that the CIRA leadership had given an undertaking not to harm the witness. O’Neill’s evidence subsequently led to Mackin’s conviction on Friday.

Mackin denied murdering Burns, a 36-year-old father of five, whose body was dumped in a car park in west Belfast. He had been shot in the head.

Another CIRA member, Joseph Jones, 38, was murdered on the same night. He was beaten to death and was barely recognisable when his body was found in Ardoyne. Nobody has been charged over his death.

O’Neill told detectives that Mackin had abducted Burns in a car and then “just walked over and shot Eddie [Burns] in the back of the head”.

Burns, whom the CIRA had suspected of trying to form a breakaway group, had begged for mercy before being shot.

O’Neill said he grabbed the gun and ran away, but Mackin chased him and he tripped. Mackin then shot him in the arm and neck before the gun jammed.

O’Neill managed to stagger to the road where a taxi stopped and took him to hospital.

Burns’s murder provoked outrage among republicans. The CIRA, one of two paramilitary groups not on ceasefire, eventually bowed to public pressure and decided not to intimidate O’Neill if he cooperated with the investigation.

“CIRA’s army council wanted to ‘court marshal’ Mackin but decided to let the police investigation proceed unhindered”, according to a security source.

Gardai later arrested Mackin in Dublin. O’Neill told them he would testify against Mackin but would not travel to Dublin.

The prosecution arranged for the Special Criminal Court to sit in Belfast to hear his evidence.

Mackin is the first person to be convicted by the Special Criminal Court in Dublin for a murder committed in Northern Ireland.

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