Dissidents blamed after bomb kills man

TWO men and a woman were last night being questioned by police after a construction worker was murdered in a bomb attack on a Derry Territorial Army base.

David Caldwell, 51, died after a booby-trapped lunchbox exploded in a temporary building at the city’s Caw Camp. As the father-of-four’s partner pleaded for no retaliation, police chiefs hit out at the bombers for plunging new depths in targeting civilians.

Assistant Chief Constable Sam Kinkaid said: “This isn’t an army base, this is a TA centre. In the last number of months the only people who have been working here have been contractors.”

Detectives probing the murder made the arrests after carrying out searches in the Derry and Strabane areas. Forensics experts were last night combing the base, which is used mainly by ambulance and medical units, for clues to when the device was left.

Rogue republican paramilitaries plotting to wreck the peace process have mounted a series of bomb attacks on army bases in and around Derry. Earlier this year another civilian worker was seriously injured when a similar device detonated at the nearby Magilligan base.

Mr Kinkaid said it was too soon to say when the bomb was planted and whether the attack involved the Real IRA or the Continuity IRA.

But the explosion is thought to be the first dissident attack to have caused a death since the 1998 Omagh atrocity when the Real IRA murdered 29 people.

Mr Caldwell had served in the Ulster Defence R but left in the mid 1980s.

His partner said his family were devastated and appealed for no retaliation for his death.

Mavis McFaul said: “I want no revenge for Davy’s death because he wouldn’t want it. I have a daughter and if they could see the families they leave behind, the heartbroken, they wouldn’t do this.”

An army spokesman denounced it as a “despicable, cowardly attack”.

He added: “This is a centre for medical units which provides TA personnel for peacekeeping and humanitarian tasks all over the world. These people are lifesavers and it’s outrageous that such an incident should occur in such a place.”

Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid hit out at the terrorists’ bid to bring down the Good Friday Agreement.

“This murder is utterly contemptible. Dissident republican bombers and loyalist murder gangs are two sides of the same coin,” he said.

Gregory Campbell, the hardline Democratic Unionist MP for East Derry, claimed Prime Minister Tony Blair could no longer argue the peace process was working.

The staunch opponent of the Good Friday Agreement said: “We couldn’t have more tangible evidence things aren’t working. The government has to stop living the lie.”

First Minister David Trimble and Deputy First Minister Mark Durkan said: “We condemn without reservation those responsible for carrying out this explosion. We offer our heartfelt sympathy to his family.”

Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness said the killing was “absolutely and totally wrong”.

The Mid Ulster MP, who is also the Stormont Education Minister, added: “These attacks, whether by rejectionist loyalists or dissident republicans, are attacks on the peace process and must be condemned in the most forthright and unequivocal terms.”

John Hume, the SDLP MP for the city, voiced his condemnation of the attack, adding: “I am certain that I speak for the vast majority of the people of Derry.”