GINO Gallagher did not fit the stereotypical image of a ruthless killer. Working as a bouncer in a plush Belfast hotel last month, he was too shy to order revellers off a table.
A group of middle class women threw their arms around him and asked him to take their picture. "If they only knew who he was, they wouldn't be so friendly," remarked an observer.
Gallagher (32), the INLA chief of staff, welcomed the extra money from the hotel work. "It's £30 a night for doing very little," he said. He was "doing the double" claiming social security benefits for being unemployed and grabbing whatever work he could to supplement his income.
He had a modest lifestyle. He was vehemently opposed to drug dealing, extortion or crime for personal gain. "He had hardly the money for a black taxi down the road," recalls one friend.
He was a keen chess player. His favourite musician was Christy Moore. He described himself as a Marxist and said that his favourite book was by Franz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth. "Fanon shows how society shapes people's minds through religion and education," he said.
Gallagher was one of the best known republican killers in Belfast. He shot dead three leading loyalists on the Shankill in June 1994 and was responsible for several other killings. His deadly effectiveness as a gunman was widely talked about in Belfast bars.
"There will be some celebrations on the Shankill now that Gino's gone," a colleague said.
Any attacks Gallagher organised were successful because he was very security conscious and used only people whom he completely trusted. He spent about 10 years one third of his life in jail. He was imprisoned on three separate occasions, the longest being for seven years on an arms charge. He was released five years ago.
I first met Gino Gallagher last April, just after he took over as chief of staff. While eating his dinner in the kitchen of a small house in Beechmount, he read out a hand written statement from the INLA. He was polite but formal and reserved.
"Gino never relaxed with some body until he knew them," said a colleague. "And if he didn't like you, he told you. He was very honest and straightforward."
With more contact, Gallagher became friendly and easy going. He joked about life, love and work. He was always well mannered. Despite his paramilitary background, he was never macho. He was especially courteous to women. He would always open doors and offer them a seat.
A woman colleague recalls him "nearly dying of embarrassment"
when she called to his house and caught him in his boxer shorts.
"Gino was a hard man, yet he was never rude to anyone in his life," said another colleague. "He was very popular with working class nationalists, but he never took advantage of this and strutted his stuff. He was always very quiet, even subdued. There wasn't an elitist bone in his body."
Gallagher's good looks made him popular with women. He got engaged at Christmas to his girlfriend Margaret, with whom he lived in west Belfast. They had identical twins, Seana and Jade, aged three.
"They adored their daddy. They would bawl the house down if he was away for even a night," said a friend of Margaret.
Gallagher came from a staunchly republican family from the Divis Flats. He was the target of numerous loyalist assassination attempts and two years ago there was a grenade attack on a house in which he stayed in the lower Ormeau in south Belfast.
Gallagher was critical of the, peace process. Although the INLA has engaged in a tactical suspension of violence for the past 18 months, he spoke of the possibility of a return to armed conflict.
Over recent months, he had reorganised the INLA's political wing, the Irish Republican Socialist Party, in an attempt to challenge Sinn Fein.
Although uncomfortable in the, public arena, he became a party spokesman. He spoke at a politics meeting at the University of Ulster last month. "He turned so white beforehand, I thought he was going to collapse," said an IRSP member.
Gallagher found media interviews particularly hard. "I'm not used to this sort of thing," he complained after one television appearance.