THE NUJ has called on the British and Irish governments to give "immediate priority" to setting up an independent investigation into the murder of journalist Martin O’Hagan.
The Sunday World reporter, who was 51, was shot dead by loyalist paramilitaries on September 28, 2001 in Lurgan, Co Armagh as he walked home from a pub with his wife.
In a statement marking the 21st anniversary of his death the union's Assistant General Secretary Séamus Dooley also renewed calls for publication of the report of the Police Ombudsman into the PSNI investigation into the killing.
The call has also been supported by Amnesty Northern Ireland.
While the murder was later claimed in the name of the Red Hand Defenders, members of the LVF were thought to be responsible.
No-one has ever been charged.
Patrick Corrigan, Amnesty International’s Northern Ireland Programme Director, said: "The authorities’ failure to bring Martin O’Hagan’s killers to justice has fed into a climate of fear for journalists in Northern Ireland.
"There is little confidence in a PSNI-led investigation as it’s long been suspected that Martin’s killers were protected by the PSNI because some of those who carried out this murder were paid police informers.
"We’re calling on the Police Ombudsman to publish the report of her long-running investigation into the failed police probe, a move which may finally provide some answers for the O’Hagan family into why the killers have gone unpunished all these years."
Mr Dooley added: "Year after year we find ourselves demanding an end to the official indifference to the appalling failure to properly investigate the circumstances leading to the murder of Martin O’Hagan.
"Publication of the Ombudsman’s report and the establishment of an independent investigation by an international panel is necessary in order to answer the many disturbing questions which arise from Martin’s murder," he said.
"We are calling on the British Prime Minister Liz Truss and Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris to take urgent steps to initiate a fresh investigation."
