AN eyewitness who claimed to have seen murder victim Kevin McGuigan leaving the scene of Gerard 'Jock' Davison attack, passed the information to former members of the IRA leading to last week's revenge style shooting, The Irish News has learned.
The former IRA member was shot dead in front of his wife Dolores as he opened a security gate into his Comber Court home in the Short Strand area of east Belfast last week.
His murder is believed to have been in retaliation for the murder of former IRA commander Davison, who was shot dead as he walked to work in the Markets area of south Belfast in May of this year.
While the 53 year-old was widely named as the leading suspect in the killing the PSNI said they spoke to him in the wake of the murder of the IRA commander only as a witness.
Through his solicitor Mr McGuigan also denied involvement in the murder.
The Irish News understands Mr McGuigan provided an alibi to detectives claiming he was working out in a local gym at the time of the Davison shooting. His signature was in a log book used to sign in an out of the Belfast dock-side gym at the time of the shooting.
Former members of the IRA dismissed this after learning that Mr McGuigan, who was a keen body builder, had keys to the gym and was able to access it when it was officially closed to the public arguing he could have signed the book at any time.
However, it was the emergence of an eye witness who saw Kevin McGuigan in Upper Stanfield Street on the morning of Jock Davison's murder that finally sealed his fate.
The eyewitness, who knew Mr McGuigan well, is a hard-line republican who refused to cooperate with the PSNI investigation but instead reported the sighting to former members of the IRA.
Mr McGuigan had a long standing grudge against his former IRA associate after falling foul of the organisation and being subjected to a punishment style shooting in 2000.
He had also clashed with the IRA man turned community worker over his son Kevin jnr, who has also been warned that he is under threat.
A former republican prisoner, Mr McGuigan had served time in prison for kidnapping a British soldier after being arrested in 1986 along with Ardoyne republican Martin Meehen.
On his release from prison he became involved in the IRA cover group Direct Action Against Drugs, and was linked to the killing of a number of high profile criminals in the 1990s.
The weapon used in the shooting of Davison was a Russian-made Makarov handgun believed to have been sourced by a criminal with connections to the drug trade in Dublin who also had a grudge against Davison.
That man is believed to be a close friend of the McGuigan family and expected to attend today's funeral at St Matthew's Church in east Belfast.
Sinn Féin has insisted that mainstream republicans were not involved in the grudge murder with assembly member Alex Maskey, saying "The IRA stood down in July 2005. They have left the scene. They no longer exist".
However, one of the murdered man's daughters posted a message on Facebook saying: "Even the dogs in the street no (sic) them scum IRA murdered my daddy".
Requiem Mass for Mr McGuigan will take place today at noon in St Matthew's Church in east Belfast before burial at City Cemetery. He is survived by his wife Dolores nine children and six grandchildren.
