Israel under pressure to release Belfast journalist

The Israeli authorities are coming under increasing pressure to release a Belfast journalist who was arrested at a roadblock in the occupied West Bank on Saturday.

40-year-old Sean O'Muireagain, a reporter with the Irish language daily Lá, was apparently arrested following a tip-off from British intelligence in the mistaken belief that he was a dissident republican paramilitary.

Israel said it suspected Mr O'Muireagain was training Palestinian militants in bomb-making techniques, but his parents, his work colleagues and the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign have all insisted that there must be some mistake.

The reporter, a critic of Israeli government policy, was in Palestine to organise a schools twinning project and has no known republican or paramilitary links.