Republican Sinn Féin today held a press conference in west Belfast to highlight what it said were widescale raids and detentions over the past two weeks in the Craigavon and Lurgan areas of Co Armagh.
The group, which is opposed to the peace process, presented a number of people it claimed had been subjected to heavy-handed treatment by the police during raids in the Craigavon area.
The raids come in the wake of the recent killings of two British soldiers and a PSNI constable.
Republican Sinn Féin spokesman Richard Walsh called for the immediate release of suspects still being questioned about the murders.
“Obviously there was wide-scale repression in Lurgan and Craigavon areas over the course of the past couple of weeks,” he claimed. The RUC [the group insists on calling the PSNI by its former title] was clearly intimidatory and brutalised a number of people.”
He added: “We are demanding the release of everyone being held about these crimes immediately.”
A third man (21) appeared in court today charged with withholding information about the murder of PC Stephen Carroll (48), in Craigavon earlier this month.
Elsewhere, a top republican being questioned about the killing of two British soldiers in Antrim, two days before PC Carroll’s murder, remains in custody after being rearrested yesterday, less than an hour after a High Court Judge ruled his detention unlawful.