Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson said today that the British Government was “profoundly sorry” that the victims of the 1972 Claudy bombing and their families had been denied justice.

The Catholic Church today insisted it did not cover-up the Claudy bomb atrocity by moving a suspected terrorist priest out of the North.

Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams is due to meet the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern in Dublin today to discuss how to restore devolved government in the North.

A SINN FÉIN Assembly member was being questioned by detectives last night about one of the worst IRA atrocities during the Troubles.

Three men and a woman were arrested today by police investigating an IRA bomb atrocity more than 30 years ago in which nine people were killed.

Former British Tory party grandee Lord Whitelaw may have been involved in a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice while Northern Ireland Secretary more than 30 years ago, it was claimed tonight.

Pressure is mounting on authorities in the North to launch a full inquiry into claims that the British government and the Catholic Church colluded in covering up the involvement of a priest in the 1972 Claudy bombing.

The British government will be forced to have a Bloody Sunday-style public inquiry into the 1972 Claudy bombings, Democratic Unionist leader the Rev Ian Paisley predicted today.

The ArchBishop of Armagh and Primate of All-Ireland, Dr Dean Brady, has expressed his personal distress, grief and shame at the possible involvement of a priest, either directly or indirectly, in the Claudy bombing.

Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble has called for a full judicial inquiry, similar to the Bloody Sunday tribunal, into the allegations of a cover-up in the Claudy bombing.

The British Government and the Catholic Church were involved in an astonishing cover-up to shield a priest suspected of heading-up the IRA team responsible for one of Northern Ireland’s worst ever bomb atrocities, police claimed today.