French release Real IRA suspect

One of the six people arrested in France on suspicion of links to an IRA dissident faction was released today.

A second suspect was expected to be freed tonight but investigators planned to apply to a judge to extend the detention of the four others, said a judicial official.

All six were detained yesterday.

The French suspects are believed to have links with the Real IRA, which claimed responsibility for Northern Ireland’s deadliest bombing, a car bomb attack in 1998.

The six were held in the northern coastal regions of Cotes d’Armor and Seine-Maritime. Police also found two submachine guns, an automatic pistol and two silencers hidden in a barrel-sized container in a forest.

Officials are analysing computers and mobile telephones seized during the arrests.

The Real IRA claimed responsibility for a car bomb that killed 29 people and wounded more than 300 in Omagh on August 15, 1998.

The dissidents oppose the landmark Northern Ireland peace accord of 1998, chiefly because it did not abolish Northern Ireland as British territory, the traditional IRA objective.

The faction and another dissident group, the Continuity IRA, continue to mount sporadic attacks in Northern Ireland.