Double murder: Seven quizzed

Four men and two women were questioned today about a double murder believed to be linked to a fall-out over guns among dissident republicans.

A man and a woman were detained in Belfast following the arrest of three men and a woman in Dundalk, Co Louth and Dublin.

Joseph Jones (aged 38), and Edwards Burns, (aged 36), died within hours of each other last March.

Burns was found shot dead in Bog Meadows, west Belfast, and later the badly beaten body of Jones was discovered in the republican Ardoyne district of the city.

It is understood the pair had been drinking together before being lured into a car by men believed to be connected to the Continuity IRA.

The Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) last week said the two men were executed by the hard-line republican dissident group after they set up a breakaway faction.

The paramilitary ceasefire watchdog alleged, in its latest report, that Jones and Burns were “both former Belfast members (of the Continuity IRA) who had established a rival group in the same area”.

Gardaí said the arrests were made yesterday as part of an ongoing cross-border inquiry in co-operation with the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).

The man and women being quizzed in the North were arrested in north Belfast and are being held at the Serious Crime Suite at Antrim Police Station.