PAUL WILLIAMS SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT – 14 MARCH 2013
GARDAI plan to prevent a Republican paramilitary display at the funeral of murdered Real IRA terrorist Peter Butterly, which is due to take place in the next few days.
Officers are anxious to avoid scenes similar to those witnessed at the funeral of the former RIRA gang leader Alan Ryan last September in Donaghmede, on Dublin's north side.
Ryan's coffin was escorted through the streets by a paramilitary-clad funeral party.
However, sources believe that the same efforts won't be made to give Butterly a hero's send off – because he was shot on the orders of his own former comrades.
The body of the 35-year-old father, who was executed in the car park of the Huntsman Inn near Gormanston, Co Meath, last Wednesday, was released to the family yesterday afternoon.
It is understood that loved ones of the murdered man organised an independent post-mortem which was carried out in Our Lady of Lourdes hospital in Drogheda on Tuesday evening.
Undertakers removed the remains to a mortuary in Navan.
It has also emerged the arresting officer, who had been keeping RIRA suspects under surveillance, risked his life when he confronted the two suspects at the scene.
The National Surveillance Unit did not know a shooting was planned and the officer had to break cover to apprehend the men.
