A woman "terrified" of her identity being made public has said that Mr lifford McKeown was spotted at the Lurgan entertainment complex from here taxi-driver Michael McGoldrick unwittingly collected those who later klled him.
Mr McKeown (43) denies murdering Mr McGoldrick in July 1996 as a birthday present for LVF leader Billy Wright.
The claim was made yesterday by the woman (25) who was allowed to give her evidence screened behind a curtain at the Belfast Crown Court trial.
She claimed that in the hours before Mr McGoldrick's murder, she saw Mr McKeown, from Parkmore in Craigavon, with another man in a bar at the Centre Point complex.
She further claimed that as she and a friend later went to the cinema, Mr McKeown and the man went to the foyer where they used one of the public telephones.
When she initially spotted Mr McKeown she was "surprised because I have never known him to be around Centre Point" and that his presence made her feel "very uncomfortable".
The woman, who said she was "terrified" if her identity was made public, also revealed that she later deliberately failed to pick Mr McKeown out of a police line-up for the same reason.
As she waited to view the identity parade, she "heard voices" and thinking they were other witnesses, became "afraid of the consequences of picking him out".
Although she identified a man standing next to Mr McKeown, as police drove her home she revealed what she had done.
Over the coming years, police contacted her to see if she would elaborate on her initial police statement in which she talked of seeing two men, whom failed to name or identify.
She said she was "afraid" of identifying the men. "I was afraid for myself, but for my family mostly, because of what might happen."
Eventually in November and December last year, she made two further statements in which she did identify and name Mr McKeown and the man with him.
When asked why, she said it was because "this thing just kept coming back and I put a lot of thought into it and I wanted to do the right thing".
Later under cross-examination from Mr Alan Kane, defending, the woman denied there were inconsistencies between her first and last statements.
Although Mr Kane said the statement did not match up, and at one point suggested she had made "false" statements, the woman maintained she had not lied.
The trial continues.