Catholic postal worker dies in shooting attack in Belfast

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- A Catholic postal worker was shot and killed as he arrived for work in Belfast on Saturday, and an outlawed Protestant group claimed responsibility.

Daniel McColgan, 20, was shot several times outside a Royal Mail sorting office in north Belfast's largely Protestant Rathcoole area just before 5 a.m., police said. He died two hours later in a hospital.

Two men with scarves pulled across their faces were seen fleeing the scene in a silver Renault that was later found abandoned nearby, police said.

A group called the Red Hand Defenders said it had carried out the killing. Police consider the name a front for members of Northern Ireland's largest illegal paramilitary group, the Ulster Defense Association, and of other illegal Protestant groups.

"At the end of a sickening week, this is the most sickening event of all," said Alban Maginness, a north Belfast member of Northern Ireland's assembly, who represents the moderate Catholic Social Democratic and Labor Party.