A second Sinn Féin election candidate was in the Belfast pub where IRA murder victim Robert McCartney was attacked, it emerged tonight.

As Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams braced himself for a fierce US backlash over the murder, the party disclosed that Deirdre Hargey was still inside Magennis’s Bar when police first arrived.

But she denied seeing the brawl leading to the horrific knife attack which left Mr McCartney, aged 33, dying on the street outside.

Ms Hargey, aged 23, is a community development worker who is due to stand in May’s local government elections.

Ms Hargey, who has given a statement to her lawyer, insisted: “I did not witness the fracas in the bar, or the incident outside the bar.”

Cora Groogan, another Sinn Féin candidate, confirmed this weekend that she was in the bar.

With Sinn Féin facing unprecedented pressure over the murder, the link to two of the party’s new generation of political representatives will cause a beleaguered and isolated Mr Adams huge embarrassment in Washington and New York later this week.

He has already been snubbed three times for St Patrick’s Day events on Thursday and faces tough questioning from the Irish-American lobby, including some of his closest supporters.

Senator Ted Kennedy called off planned talks amid alarming allegations of Provisional crime operations.

The Sinn Féin leader has also been refused a meeting with President Bush at the White House.

And he will not be attending the St Patrick’s Day lunch hosted by the Speaker of the House of Representatives Dennis Hastert.

To compound the crisis engulfing the republican leadership, Mr McCartney’s five sisters and fiancee Bridgeen Hagans are also heading to America this week on the next stage of their campaign to force the father-of-two’s killers into court.

Alongside meetings with President Bush and Senator Kennedy, private talks have been set up with Senator Hillary Clinton.

The family believe witnesses to the merciless murder have been frightened into silence by IRA men involved.

Even though the Provos have expelled three volunteers and Sinn Féin has suspended seven members over the January 30 attack, frustrated detectives have yet to charge anyone because no-one has agreed to testify.

Nuala O’Loan, the Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman, has offered to take statements from those refusing to deal with the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

Her staff, who expect to receive accounts from those in Magennis’s on the night Mr McCartney was battered and stabbed to death, were still waiting for the first to arrive tonight.

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