The murder of a top loyalist paramilitary was as barbaric as anything inflicted by the notorious Shankill Butchers gang 30 years ago, a Belfast inquest heard today.
Geordie Legge (37) who was found with his throat cut and multiple stab wounds, is believed to have been killed in a bar owned by a close associate Jim Gray, who was shot dead in the city last October, it was claimed.
Legge's body was found dumped at Carryduff on the eastern outskirts of Belfast in January 2001.
At the time he was a senior member of the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) who had fallen out with the organisation's so-called brigadiers.
Gray, another leader, owned the Bunch of Grapes pub where Legge was believed to have been murdered, Detective Inspector Michael McErlane told senior coroner John Leckey.
Gray was one of five men later questioned about the murder, but never charged.
The Shankill Butchers was a ruthless gang of loyalists who in the mid-70's toured the streets of north and west Belfast, kidnapping innocent Catholics walking home late at night and driving them off to be tortured and stabbed with butchers' knives.
Legge was a business partner of Gray, who headed an extensive racketeering empire, and today's inquest heard how the killers disposed of evidence of the murder by removing a carpet from Gray's pub, which police believe would have been covered in blood.
Mr Leckey, who heard the victim's throat had been slit with a six inch knife, said it was the worst case he had seen since the Shankill Butchers' reign of terror during the Troubles.
He said: "I have been acting as Coroner long enough to remember the Shankill Butchers and looking at this brings back memories of how their victims were treated. "It really is dreadful, dreadful injuries," Mr Leckey said.
"It's a sobering thought that the person or persons responsible for this horrific murder are still walking the streets."