Neutral alternative to "deny" to mean "assert the untruth [of a claim]"

The term "deny" means to reject the truth of some claim. However, it often seems to imply the claim is in fact true, denial notwithstanding.

Smith continued to deny that he had shot Jones.

I believe it is for this reason that Wikipedia lists it as a potential "weasel word" used to subvert the neutrality of encyclopedic articles. Is there an alternative to "deny" that does not carry this non-neutral connotation?

Equally lacking in negative connotations, but not carrying the punctive aspect of K-'s answer, is:

Smith maintained that he had not shot Jones.

Taking your example as a starting point, perhaps one might say

Smith continued to assert that he had not shot Jones.

Regardless of the degree to which this variation solves the problem, that problem remains the phenomenon in which a word such as toilet gains currency as a euphemistic replacement for some less savoury term, but then accumulates the same negative connotations as the term it has replaced.

Here, deny is fundamentally a simple assertion of negation which has accrued an aura of innuendo or suspicion purely by virtue of the fact that it has so often been attached to the utterances of miscreants.

This implies that even if a currently suitable replacement exists (because it is not yet tainted by negative associations), its purity of status will only be temporary, and yet another replacement will then have to be found. The most neutral alternative I can think of today is contradict the claim or contradict the assertion:

Smith continued to contradict the claim [or assertion] that he had shot Jones.

Deny suffers from the additional problem that for some people, its status may already be compromised by its secondary meaning of 'refuse to acknowledge' in the Biblical context of Peter denying Jesus at one point.