The Irish News
A dissident republican is being questioned by police following an attack in Co Tyrone. Kevin Barry Murphy (39) was among six men arrested after police stopped a car in the Stewartstown area of Co Tyrone early yesterday.
A PSNI spokeswoman said police were investigating a number of lines of inquiry, including a possible link to an earlier hijacking in the Ballyronan area near Cookstown hours earlier. Three masked men hijacked a couple's Renault Megane from a car park in Ballyronan shortly after midnight.
The masked men smashed the driver's window and passenger's window before ordering the couple to get out of the vehicle and then driving it towards Ballyronan. The couple were shaken following their ordeal but were not injured. The car had not yet been located last night and police were keen to hear from anyone who knew of its whereabouts.
Last year Mr Murphy, who is a spokesman for the 32-County Sovereignty Movement, was named in a leaked British government document as being a leading member of the Real IRA. In 2003 he was one of four men acquitted of membership of the Real IRA and possession of a rocket launcher after they had been arrested in a field outside Coalisland police station.
In a court in the Republic all were cleared of being members of a banned paramilitary group after the trial judge ruled that the Real IRA was not an illegal organisation.
One of the four, alleged Special Branch informer Gareth O'Connor, disappeared in 2003 while en route to a Dundalk Garda station to report as part of his bail conditions. The body of the father-of-two was recovered just over two years later from the Newry canal.
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