High-profile republican arrested over soldiers' killings

One of the three men arrested by police probing the murder of two soldiers in the North is the high profile republican Colin Duffy.

The 41-year-old former IRA prisoner had broken away from mainstream republicans and is part of a protest group that criticised Sinn Féin’s decision to back the new Police Service of Northern Ireland.

He came to prominence in the 1990s after he was acquitted of the murder of a soldier when it emerged a key witness against him was a loyalist paramilitary, but was later arrested over the subsequent murder of two police constables though the case collapsed.

His solicitor, Rosemary Nelson, received threats after representing him in court and she was murdered in a loyalist car bomb attack at her Lurgan home in 1999.

Her death is now the subject of a high-profile public inquiry.

Police teams in forensic suits were today searching Duffy’s house in a private estate in Lurgan, Co Armagh.

Two other men aged 21 and 32 were arrested today after police raids in Lurgan and Bellaghy, Co Derry.

The three men were arrested by police probing the murder of two soldiers gunned down by the dissident republican Real IRA as they collected pizzas at the gates of Massereene barracks in Antrim last Saturday night.

Official sources, as well as republicans in the Lurgan area, today said Duffy was among the men arrested.