The former UDA commander in west Belfast, Mr Johnny Adair, has said he was shot in the head and assaulted at an open air rock concert in south Belfast at the weekend.
Mr Adair was sentenced to 16 years for directing terrorism but will be freed soon under the terms of the Belfast Agreement.
He was on weekend parole when he attended the UB40 concert in Botanic Gardens on Friday night. Mr Adair said: "I was watching the band with my wife when someone came up behind me and shot me in the head.
"I turned to run but was set upon from within the crowd who assaulted myself and my wife several times. We ran to safety outside Botanic Gardens. We stopped a taxi which took us to the Shankill Road."
Eyewitnesses said they saw Adair being beaten by around 12 men. However, they did not see a gun being pulled or hear a shot. An RUC spokesman said a man who had been at the concert had been admitted to hospital. "He sustained a bullet wound to the head," he said.
Mr Adair has since been released from hospital. The Ulster Democratic Party blamed the attack on republicans. The RUC yesterday asked anybody with photographs or camcorder footage of the concert to come forward.
Meanwhile, the RUC is treating an attack on a man in south Belfast as sectarian. He was walking along the Donegall Road with two women early yesterday when he was assaulted by a group of men.