A CATHOLIC priest has condemned rioters who attacked PSNI officers in Lurgan, Co Armagh following the arrest of prominent republican Colin Duffy.
One officer suffered a shoulder injury when stones and petrol bombs were used against officers. Masked rioters also attempted to block the main Belfast to Dublin railway line with barricades. Two teenagers were arrested.
Fr John Byrne told parishioners: “We commend our politicians for their resolute leadership both in condemnation of the murders and in their determination to draw the community together. We also offer our full support to the police at this time as they try to go about their challenging work attempting to make our community much safer.”
A security alert in Lurgan yesterday was declared a hoax after two controlled explosions were carried out on a suspect device in the Allenhill Park area of the town. About 12 homes were evacuated during the alert.
Mr Duffy (41) was arrested on Saturday in connection with the investigation into the Real IRA murders of the two British soldiers at the Massereene army base in Antrim town nine days ago.
Army engineers Mark Quinsey (23), from Birmingham, and Patrick Azimkar (21), from London, were shot several times by gunmen as they took collection of pizzas at the gates of their base on March 8th just hours before they were due to deploy to Helmand province in Afghanistan.
Two other soldiers and two delivery men, one of them a Polish national, were seriously injured.
Now associated with the socialist republican political group éirígí, Mr Duffy was acquitted of killing a British soldier during the 1990s. He was also a suspect in the murders of two RUC officers shot dead by the IRA in the summer of 1997, but the case collapsed. He was represented by solicitor Rosemary Nelson, herself murdered by loyalist paramilitaries outside her home in 1999.
Mr Duffy was arrested at the weekend along with two other suspects aged 21 and 32 following PSNI operations in both Lurgan and Bellaghy, Co Derry.
All suspects are still being questioned under the terms of the terrorism Act at the PSNI’s serious crime suite at Antrim police station.
Police officers wearing forensic boiler suits have searched Mr Duffy’s house following his arrest.
Four people are now being questioned in relation to the Antrim murders. Police have recovered the getaway vehicle used by the gunmen, which was found abandoned some 8km away from the scene at Ranaghan Road near Randalstown.
Attempts had been made to set fire to the car but these failed. Officers, suspicious that an experienced paramilitary unit could mount a gun attack on an army base but fail to burn a getaway car to destroy any evidence, feared it may have been booby-trapped.
A police source said last night the car and other finds would yield “considerable forensic opportunities”.
The PSNI stressed last night that the Massereene barracks killings and the examination of the Constable Stephen Carroll murder in Lurgan, admitted by the Continuity IRA, were not linked.