Police arrest six over station raid

Detectives were today questioning six people over a raid on Northern Ireland’s highest-security police station including a civilian who worked there.

The employee was one of four men and two women who were detained early yesterday when police, backed up by troops, raided properties in republican areas of Belfast and Derry.

Also among those also arrested was leading republican and former Provisional IRA prisoner Bobby Storey.

The arrests came as part of a major police investigation into a raid on Castlereagh police station in east Belfast on March 17, St Patrick’s night.

A gang burst into the high security anti-terror unit at the police station and attacked a lone officer on patrol, putting a bag over his head and tying him up before escaping with a number of items.

The anti-terror unit serves as a link point for information passed between agents and informers and their Special Branch handlers.

The arrests, which came in a series of raids on houses in north, west and east Belfast and Derry, were described as ‘‘highly provocative’’ by Sinn Fein.

That was because they came on the eve of rallies by Republicans across Ireland to commemorate the 1916 Easter Rising.

Police sources said the civilian detained was someone employed in the police station.

The sources appeared to suggest that he was not a member of the police service.

There was no indication that any of the items removed from the Special Branch unit at the high security police station two weeks ago were recovered during the raids.

The Sinn Fein deputy mayor of Derry tonight hit out at security forces in the city for raiding a counselling centre for victims of violence during a swoop relating to the Castlereagh break-in.

Peter Anderson criticised police and the Army for searching the premises of Cunanh, in Sumbeam Terrace, which counsels a number of people, including families of some of the 13 people killed on Bloody Sunday.

‘‘There is a lot of anger and concern at the Gestapo-style tactics adopted by people who claim to represent the new beginning to policing,’’ he said.