Trouble flares in Lurgan as dissidents jailed for police death plot

Trouble flared in Lurgan, Co.Armagh tonight after three dissident republicans from the town were each jailed for 15 years for plotting to kill police officers.

There were disturbances in the Kilwilkie estate and at one stage a van was set alight. Police urged motorists to stay away from the area.

Hours earlier at Belfast Crown Court the three men were sentenced.

A live mortar, complete with launching tube, was found near the Cornakinnegar Road on 5 April 2007.

Damien McKenna, aged 26, of Deans Walk, Gary Toman, aged 24, of Drumnahoe Avenue and Sean McConville, aged 23, of Kilwilkie Road, all in Lurgan, pleaded guilty.

The police said they believed the men were members of the Continuity IRA.

The mortar was designed to be fired horizontally into a passing police or Army vehicle.

Earlier court hearings were told the men were being watched by members of an Army special forces unit in March 2007 – McKenna had been under observation for up to six months.

The unit saw the men behaving suspiciously in a field and they were arrested by police as they drove away.