A Catholic man, named by the RUC as Mr Liam Conway (39), was shot in north Belfast last night and died in hospital hours after the UFF issued a statement calling off its murder campaign against Catholics.
The man was attacked shortly before 5 p.m. yesterday as he worked on a digger on Hesketh Road, off the Crumlin Road. A lone gunman approached him and shot him twice in the head at close range. He was taken to the Mater Hospital but did not regain consciousness.
Up to late last night no group had claimed responsibility for the attack.
In its statement the UFF admitted it had carried out a number of recent killings, saying: "The current phase of republican aggression by the INLA made a measured military response unavoidable. That response is now concluded."
Yesterday's statement came after the RUC Chief Constable, Mr Ronnie Flanagan, said on Thursday he believed the UFF had carried out three of the seven killings by loyalists since the start of December.
The Ulster Democratic Party, which is linked to the UFF/UDA, welcomed the statement, and said it would continue "to use all its influence, both inside and outside the negotiative process, in a wholly positive manner". The UDP could still face expulsion from the talks because of the killings by the UFF.
The Alliance Party deputy leader, Mr Seamus Close, said the UFF statement signified a clear breach of the Mitchell Principles of democracy and non-violence, and he called on the two governments to take "appropriate action".
The Ulster Unionist leader, Mr David Trimble, said he viewed the statement as "an admission of guilt", but his party had not made any decision on a formal complaint against the UDP.
He said it was a clear admission of a breach of the Mitchell Principles and there were "consequences which flow from that".
The leader of the SDLP, Mr John Hume, said he was "glad" the UFF had announced that the killing of innocent civilians had stopped, and the people who were killed had "absolutely nothing to do with the murder of Billy Wright", and that there was no justification for the "terrible murders".
Sinn Fein's chief negotiator, Mr Martin McGuinness, said the statement was "an affront to those innocent Catholics who have been killed" and that it was "a spurious attempt to justify a litany of murders involving a number of loyalist gangs".
Mr McGuinness also attacked the role of Mr Flanagan, saying that people would ask if the UFF campaign could not have been stopped earlier if he "had not delayed in identifying" the involvement of the UFF.
A DUP spokesman, Mr Ian Paisley jnr, described the UFF statement as "contemptible" and said it demonstrated that "the terrorists call the shots in the talks process".
He added that if the statement was accepted by the British government, it would be "clear that the process itself sanctions terrorists to take a `time out' to commit murder". Mr Paisley said the onus was on Mr Trimble to raise an indictment against the UDP in the talks.
The Irish Republican Socialist Party, the political wing of the INLA, said the UFF statement was a mechanism to allow the UDP to stay in the talks and that it ignored the fact that a number of nationalists were killed by the UFF prior to any INLA actions.
Meanwhile, four people, believed to be loyalists from the Portadown area, were arrested after two cars were stopped by police yesterday morning in the Malone area of south Belfast.
They were taken to Gough Barracks in Armagh for questioning.
Another eight people were also arrested yesterday for questioning on recent killings.
One man was questioned by police in Belfast yesterday after 100 lb of commercial explosives and 200 lb of what was called "a crystallised substance" were found in a house in the Shankill area. Described by police as "significant", the find is being linked to loyalists.
A man was shot in both legs in what is believed to have been a punishment attack in the nationalist New Lodge area of north Belfast last night. He was taken to hospital after being found in Upper Meadow Street.