Security forces in the North believe there was a criminal rather than a sectarian motive for this week's killing of Lurgan man Mr Kevin Conway, the Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, said yesterday.
Mr Conway (30), who was married and was the father of a four-month-old child, went missing from his home in the nationalist Kilwilkie Estate in Lurgan on Tuesday afternoon. His body was found on Wednesday night five miles away in a derelict farmhouse in the loyalist Aghalee area of Co Antrim.
His hands were tied behind him and he had been shot in the head.
The Loyalist Volunteer Force denied involvement. Local Sinn Fein councillors rejected suggestions that Mr Conway could have been killed in a republican "punishment".
Mr Conway's family issued a statement yesterday saying his killers "could only be described as cowards." They could not understand why anyone would want to take away the life of an innocent family man, and hoped the people who killed him would be brought to justice.