The brother of the murdered Strabane man Andrew Burns has said that his family have been 'deeply hurt' by the claim that he was a member of the dissident republican group which killed him.
In its latest report, the International Monitoring Commission (IMC) named Burns as a member of the splinter group, Óglaigh na hÉireann.
Speaking to the 'Journal' yesterday - on the day his brother would have celebrated his 28th birthday - Larry Bu
rns said that the timing of the IMC's report couldn't have been worse as his parents were still grieving for their son.
"Today is hard enough for us all, without having this speculation about Andrew to deal with, we are saddened by this report," he said.
Mr Burns said that as yet the family have not seen any proof to sustain the IMC's claims that their youngest brother was killed by members of his own organisation.
"We can neither confirm nor deny their claims because we have not seen any proof to say that he was or was not involved with this group. We can't ask Andrew, so we have no concrete evidence to prove anything."
"We wanted today to be a private remembrance, we took some flowers to his grave and sat with him. We are still grieving even though he died months ago."
Mr Burns said that his family would not be taking legal action against the IMC but they hoped there would be a full inquest in months to come into his brother's murder.
The full article contains 257 words and appears in Journal Tuesday Derry Edit newspaper.
