A former French Foreign Legion paratrooper, Mr Stephen Larkin, was released yesterday after being cleared at a retrial in Belfast Crown Court of the attempted murder of loyalist leader, Mr Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair.
Mr Larkin (25), from Jamaica Road, Ardoyne, Belfast, was convicted of attempted murder in 1994 and jailed for 16 years, but he was granted a retrial last year by the Court of Appeal after further alibi witnesses came forward.
Yesterday, at the conclusion of the trial, Mr Justice Kerr said that the evidence of the new witnesses was sufficient to create a reasonable doubt of the guilt of the accused man.
The judge said he accepted the honesty of the eyewitnesses who had identified Mr Larkin as the gunman who had shot and wounded Mr Adair and another man in Berlin Street, off the Shankill Road, on March 6th, 1993.
"I have no reason to doubt the authenticity of their belief in the accuracy of their identification, and two particular impressed me by their demeanour - as witnesses who genuinely were convinced that the accused was the gunman.
He commented that all the identity witnesses were within a short distance of the gunman. Each had him in view for a sufficiently long time to allow his features to be observed and registered, and all three had reason to focus throughout upon the man.
Of the defence case, Mr Justice Kerr said most of the witnesses remembered the defendant being at the Highfield Social Club in Ardoyne at the time of the shooting. "The evidence of a number of these witnesses was deeply unsatisfactory, and many of them contradicted each other or their earlier testimony.
"However, I have to be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused was not at the Highfield Club at 1.15 p.m. on March 6th . . . I find it is not possible to eliminate the reasonable possibility that the identifying witnesses were mistaken and that the accused was not in Berlin Street but was in the Highfield Club."