The family of Ihab Shoukri has denied claims that he spent the hours before his death last weekend taking drugs and drinking alcohol.

In an exclusive interview with the Belfast Telegraph his mother, brother and fiancée said the 34-year-old played football on Saturday afternoon and then spent the rest of the day at home until he was found dead on Sunday morning.

In an upstairs bedroom above the coffin of his brother, Yehia Shoukri said the exact cause of his brother’s death had yet to be determined by a pathologist.

“The situation is that they don’t know what caused his death. The doctor told me that there was no obvious evidence to say what killed Ihab. The cause of his death at the moment is undetermined and the medical people have removed part of his brain for further analysis,” he said.

“If he had been out of his head on drugs or booze it would have shown up in his blood but that isn’t the case because that isn’t what happened and I have contacted a solicitor to examine the sensational reports of his death in some of the papers and the broadcast media.

“Text was up on the television very quickly on Sunday morning without anyone having any facts about where Ihab was on Saturday night or who he was with. He was here in his home in Rathcoole all Saturday night and Sunday morning,” Yehia Shoukri, known as Yuk said.

Yehia Shoukri said his brother had played football for his club Eastway on Saturday afternoon from 2pm and then came home and had some stew made by his partner Emma.

“I had some of Emma’s stew with Ihab and then I left about teatime. I didn’t have a beer and neither did Ihab, I don’t drink and neither did he so all this rubbish about a booze fuelled session is completely wrong,” he said.

Ihab Shoukri’s partner Emma Evans said she spent the rest of the evening with him after Yehia left their small Rathcoole home.

“He had said on Saturday morning that he was feeling shivery and I said maybe he shouldn’t play football but he went and played a full match for the first time since he left prison.

“After Yuk left we watched television and all Ihab had was an Oasis drink. We had some Chinese and then waited for the Ricky Hatton fight to come on. I watched the start of the fight with him but fell asleep and woke up and decided to go to bed.

“I got up about half eight on Sunday morning and went downstairs and found Ihab still in the living room. I thought he was asleep at first and tried to waken him but I noticed he looked a bit strange and when I couldn’t get him awake I phoned an ambulance.

“We couldn’t detect any breath and they said he was dead. His body was still warm so I think he must have died around half seven,” she said.

Katie Shoukri said her son had suffered epileptic fits for around two and a half years. The quiet spoken community worker said that none of her sons drank alcohol.

“They never did, none of the boys, they weren’t drinkers. Ihab had medication for epilepsy but he didn’t always take it. The medication made him drowsy and he didn’t like the effect it had on him,” she said.

Both Yuk Shoukri and Ihab’s fiancée said they had both been with him on occasions when he had suffered epileptic fits.

Emma Evans said she had been able to cope with his seizures despite her fiancee’s powerful frame. Yehia Shoukri said he believed his brother’s epilepsy was brought on by stress caused by the turmoil within the UDA in north Belfast.

“I was never involved in the UDA. I ran my own business in north Belfast and when the dispute blew up I lost it and had to move out. Ihab said it was his fault that I had lost my business and blamed himself. He was a real worrier and took it very personally when I lost my business. I think that brought on the epilepsy and it’s probably what killed him.

“All these stories about him running around on Saturday night are wrong. He was at football, then here with me and Emma and her kids and then he just watched the fight and died. We won’t know exactly what caused his death until the tests are done on his brain and that could take months. But if he had been doing what some reporters said he was doing would that not have shown up immediately?”