Originally published at The Crux
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LONDON — Three men were acquitted of murder Friday in the 2019 killing of Belfast journalist Lyra McKee, who was shot by a member of a dissident Irish Republican Army splinter group while covering a riot in Northern Ireland.
Justice Patricia Smyth regretted that her verdict would bring “little if any comfort or relief” to McKee’s family, but said the circumstantial evidence was insufficient for a conviction, following a nonjury trial held intermittently over the past two years in Belfast Crown Court.
“Lyra McKee’s murder was an act of senseless violence,” Smyth said. “The gunman has never been brought to the court and the evidence against those accused of assisting or encouraging has fallen short of that required for conviction.”
McKee, 29, was shot while standing near law enforcement officers observing an anti-police riot in Londonderry, also known as Derry, on April 18, 2019. Protesters had tossed fire bombs at police and torched a car before four shots rang out and a bullet fired by a masked gunman struck McKee.
No one was ever charged with pulling the trigger, but three other men, Paul McIntyre, 58, Peter Cavanagh, 37, and Jordan Gareth Devine, 25, were charged with murder as
