THE murder of a man battered to death with a block of concrete was described by the Belfast Coroner yesterday as one of the most shocking, barbaric and grotesque he had listened to.
The body of Mr Noel Arthur Lyness (47), of Ballymena in Co Antrim, who was studying at Queen's University, was found in an alleyway off the Donegall Road in Belfast three days before Christmas two years ago.
The Northern Ireland State Pathologist, Prof John Crane said he had been severely beaten kicked and punched as he lay on the ground and was then hit on the head with a coping stone which had been taken from a nearby wall.
The dead man, who had been living in Belfast for only three months prior to his death had been on his way home to his flat in the Lisburn Road district from a party in the early hours of the morning of December 22nd, 1994. An RUC inspector said he could have been lured to his death or abducted and his killing could have been sectarian, as he was a Catholic and found in a Protestant area.
There was, however, no evidence of loyalist paramilitaries being involved, he told the inquest. He added that Mr Lyness was only identified through dental records and that clothing found near the scene of the murder might have been worn by the killers and burnt to destroy evidence of blood stains.
The coroner, Mr John Leckey, who called the killers sub human, said they were not content with just beating up the man but had to use a heavy concrete coping stone to "finish him off" after finding out his religion.
The RUC inspector said inquiries into the murder were still going on after almost two years and he issued a fresh appeal for anyone with the slightest information to contact the police about what he called a cowardly and savage murder.