BELFAST (AFP) - A judge in Belfast on Friday acquitted a man charged with murdering a father-of-two outside a Belfast bar, whose death sparked a high-profile campaign by his sisters.

Terence Davison, 51, had been on trial at Belfast Crown Court charged with killing Robert McCartney, 33, who was dragged from a bar in the city on January 30, 2005 and killed before witnesses who later said they saw nothing.

He denied the charge.

McCartney's death saw his five sisters dare to challenge the deadly grip of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) over Catholic districts in Belfast.

They blamed the IRA for their brother's death and travelled to Washington to meet senior US politicians, including President George W. Bush, and to the European Parliament in their campaign to bring his killers to justice.

McCartney's death cast doubt over the paramilitary group's declared end to violence that was a key step towards setting up a power-sharing administration between Protestants and Catholics in the city.

The family also blamed Sinn Fein, Northern Ireland's largest Catholic party and the former political wing of the IRA, for not condemning the killing or preventing them being intimidated by alleged associates of those responsible.

Judge John Gillen, sitting without a jury, acquitted Davison of two other charges of affray. Two other men in the dock with him were also found not guilty of affray and one of them of an additional charge of assault.

He said in a lengthy judgment that he recognised that McCartney's family and friends would be "frustrated and disappointed", but he was not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt about the prosecution evidence against the defendants.

But he said the police investigation would continue and "no-one, including for that matter even the accused in this trial, will be beyond the reach of potential prosecution" if new evidence emerges.

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