Two guns were found today during police searches connected to the murder of Belfast loyalist Alan McCullough.
As a man was due to appear in court accused of the killing, officers swooped on a house at Londonderry Park, Comber, Co Down, security sources disclosed that two pistols were discovered.
Army bomb experts were called in to make sure the weapons were not booby-trapped.
Several men have been questioned as part of the murder investigation, but the 29-year-old who was appearing at Belfast Magistrates Court is the first to be charged. He is also accused of membership of the UDA's military wing, the Ulster Freedom Fighters.
McCullough, a one-time close ally of jailed terror boss Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair, was found dead in a shallow grave on the outskirts of north Belfast sevendays ago.
The Ulster Defence Association has admitted the murder, which it claimed was in revenge for the 21-year-old's part in the assassination of UDA leader John"Grug" Gregg in February during a bitter internal feud.
McCullough had returned to Northern Ireland only last month after being exiled in Scotland and England along with other members of Adair's splinter C Company.
Even though he thought he had negotiated a lifting of the death sentence against him, McCullough vanished a week before his body was found.
Two top Ulster Defence Association men called at his home in west Belfast's Lower Shankill estate on the night he disappeared and he was never seen aliveagain.
PA