Killing of Andrew Allen

Andrew Allen was a 24-year-old father of two from the Gobnascale area of Derry. In the months before his death he had been ordered to leave the city by Republican Action Against Drugs (RAAD), a dissident republican vigilante group, and had moved across the border to Buncrana, County Donegal, where he lived with his partner and her children. A few weeks before he was killed, his name appeared on a list of six people that was sent, together with a bullet, to a family centre in Gobnascale; his family were later told the threat against him had been lifted.

On the night of 9 February 2012, at around 9.20 p.m., a masked man came to the house Allen shared with his partner in Buncrana. According to his partner's account to a later inquest, the couple were in their bedroom when she heard banging at the front door and saw a man in dark clothing carrying what looked like a sawn-off shotgun. Allen told her to call the Gardaí as he tried to dress. Moments later, several shots were fired through the bedroom window. Allen was struck three times, in the right shoulder, right hip and abdomen, and collapsed. The wound to his shoulder passed through his lung and into his heart, and he died at the scene despite attempts to help him. A car believed to have been used in the attack was later found burning nearby.

On 22 February 2012, RAAD claimed responsibility for the killing, alleging that Allen had been involved in the drugs trade, an allegation his family and the Gardaí rejected. Some friends and relatives believed another dissident organisation may have carried out the shooting. RAAD later merged with other paramilitary groups to form the dissident grouping known as the New IRA.

An inquest into Allen's death was held at Buncrana in September 2019, presided over by the Donegal coroner. A jury returned a unanimous verdict of unlawful killing, finding that he had died from a gunshot wound to the heart. A Garda inspector told the inquest that, despite hundreds of lines of inquiry, no one had been charged, and that he believed those responsible came from Derry.

In the years that followed, the Gardaí issued repeated public appeals for information. Several people were arrested and questioned over the killing, but no one has been convicted, and the investigation remains open.