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Quinn victim of criminal gangs says Adams

SINN Féin President Gerry Adams has included murdered south Armagh man Paul Quinn on a list of victims of criminal gangs.

Mr Adams was speaking at the annual commemoration for IRA men Brendan Burns and Brendan Moley who were killed in a premature bomb explosion in 1988.

The Sinn Féin leader extended his best wishes to Francis McCabe junior who was seriously injured in a bomb attack in south Armagh last week.

He then condemned "the actions of the criminal gangs active along the border" and appealed for anyone with information on these gangs "or the killing of Paul Quinn or Garda Aidan Donohoe or Keith Rogers to give it to the PSNI or An Garda Síochána".

"In recent years the criminal gangs have grown bolder and more dangerous and better organised.

They were responsible for the deaths of Garda Adrian Donohoe and Paul Quinn and Keith Rogers; the shooting of Michael Bellew and the brutal beatings of others and last week's attempted murder of Francis McCabe junior," Mr Adams said.

Mr Quinn, from Cullyhanna, was 21 when he was beaten to death. He was found at farm buildings in Tullycoora, near Castleblayney, Co Monaghan, in October 2007 and died in hospital several weeks later.

His family said he had been involved in a dispute with individual IRA members and blames members of the IRA for his murder. Sinn Féin has denied republican involvement in Mr Quinn's death.

Last year, Mr Quinn's mother Breege called on republicans to reveal any information adding that nobody had been arrested or brought to court.

"They don't speak, they sit and look at the wall. Why are they doing that? Why would they not get down on their knees to say that they did not do it, why are they staying quiet, it is something I can never understand," she said.