Belfast Ireland, March 14th 2009, Eirigi spokesman Colin Duffy has been arrested by the PSNI police following a series of early morning raids across the North of Ireland.
PSNI teams in forensic suits have been searching Mr Duffy's house in a private estate in Lurgan, County Armagh.
Two other men have also been arrested in Lurgan and Bellaghy, County Derry, in connection with the 'Real IRA' attack on Massereene Army base last Saturday.
Local republican youths clashed with PSNI personnel deployed to the area.
Mr Duffy is a prominent republican in the area and has endured a lifetime of RUC/PSNI arrests and harassment.
Mr Duffy was released from prison in 1996 when a conviction for murder was quashed by the Appeal Court following three years of false imprisonment,
The prosecution case collapsed when it was revealled that their key witness, screened from view during the trial, was a loyalist gunrunner.
He was the most prominent client of human rights lawyer, Rosemary
Nelson, who was assassinated in 1999 by a unionist death squad. The
RUC/PSNI is widely believed to have colluded in the killing, currently the subject of a public inquiry.
The arrest of Mr Duffy is being viewed as part of a potential 'securocrat' backlash against republican hardliners in the wake of last week's attacks, in which two British soldiers and a PSNI man was killed.
A massive operation is currently underway by British forces in the north Armagh area. A total of six men have so far been arrested in the raids. and further disturbances are expected.
Meanwhile, the political group connected to the 'Real IRA' has warned that "if the conflict in Ireland is to end once and for all, so too must the illegal British claim to sovereignty over the Six Counties.
PSNI teams in forensic suits have been searching Mr Duffy's house in a private estate in Lurgan, County Armagh.
Two other men have also been arrested in Lurgan and Bellaghy, County Derry, in connection with the 'Real IRA' attack on Massereene Army base last Saturday.
Local republican youths clashed with PSNI personnel deployed to the area.
Mr Duffy is a prominent republican in the area and has endured a lifetime of RUC/PSNI arrests and harassment.
Mr Duffy was released from prison in 1996 when a conviction for murder was quashed by the Appeal Court following three years of false imprisonment,
The prosecution case collapsed when it was revealled that their key witness, screened from view during the trial, was a loyalist gunrunner.
He was the most prominent client of human rights lawyer, Rosemary
Nelson, who was assassinated in 1999 by a unionist death squad. The
RUC/PSNI is widely believed to have colluded in the killing, currently the subject of a public inquiry.
The arrest of Mr Duffy is being viewed as part of a potential 'securocrat' backlash against republican hardliners in the wake of last week's attacks, in which two British soldiers and a PSNI man was killed.
A massive operation is currently underway by British forces in the north Armagh area. A total of six men have so far been arrested in the raids. and further disturbances are expected.
Meanwhile, the political group connected to the 'Real IRA' has warned that "if the conflict in Ireland is to end once and for all, so too must the illegal British claim to sovereignty over the Six Counties.
source: Irish Republican News
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