Northern Ireland Police Detain Woman As Part Of Probe Into Journalist's Murder

Fahad Shabbir (@FahadShabbir) Published April 23, 2019 | 03:01 PM

Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said in a statement on Tuesday that a woman had been arrested in connection with the murder of freelance journalist Lyra McKee during the terror attack in the city of Londonderry in Northern Ireland earlier in April

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 23rd April, 2019) Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said in a statement on Tuesday that a woman had been arrested in connection with the murder of freelance journalist Lyra McKee during the terror attack in the city of Londonderry in Northern Ireland earlier in April.

"Major Investigation Team detectives have arrested a 57-year-old woman under the Terrorism Act in connection with the murder of Lyra McKee in Creggan in Derry/Londonderry on Thursday, 18th April. She has been taken to Musgrave Serious Crime Suite," the police said on Twitter.

On Saturday, it was reported about the arrest of two men as part of the investigation, but they were later released without charge.

On April 18, the police said that one woman was killed after shots were fired and gasoline bombs were thrown in Londonderry, and added that it was treating the shooting as a terrorist incident, most likely carried out by the New Irish Republican Army (New IRA) paramilitary organization. Local police later disclosed the name of the killed woman, noting that McKee, 29, worked as a journalist in Belfast.

Earlier in the day, the New IRA claimed responsibility for the murder and extended condolences to McKee's family.

Last week, media reported that McKee collaborated with Atlantic magazine and BuzzFeed portal. Other media reports said that she was also an editor of the Mediagazer news site in Belfast and a rising star in investigative journalism.

In 2015, a report on the situation in Northern Ireland, requested by the UK government and conducted by the police and counterintelligence service MI5, was published. The report, in particular, said that that the governing body of the Irish Republican Army also known as Provisional Irish Republican Army, a terrorist organization that carried out dozens of terrorist acts in the United Kingdom and declared its disarmament in 2005, still exists, as well as the governing bodies of other militarized groups, albeit in a substantially reduced form. The group believes that all of Ireland should be an independent republic from the UK rule.