Police have arrested a 47-year-old man in Belfast in connection with the murder of ex-IRA man Kevin McGuigan, whose death has sparked a political crisis in Northern Ireland’s power sharing government.
The man was detained in the city on Monday evening and is being questioned at Musgrave Street police station in the centre of Belfast, said the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).
Former IRA prisoner McGuigan was shot dead in front of his wife in August near their home in the Short Strand district of east Belfast.
His family and republican sources in the city said members of the Provisional IRA killed McGuigan. The PSNI chief constable George Hamilton later said the police believe individual PIRA activists had murdered McGuigan in retaliation over the murder of another IRA man, Gerard ‘Jock’ Davison, earlier this year.
The chief constable’s assessment prompted protests from unionists who claimed that mainstream republicans had reneged on a promise that the PIRA would dissolve as a paramilitary force. This was one of the key unionist demands before agreeing to share power with Sinn Féin back in 2007.
A crucial report written by legal and security experts will be published on Tuesday afternoon and focuses on whether or not the PIRA and other paramilitary organisations still exist.
Its findings will be critical in the current talks being held at Stormont House about the Northern Ireland assembly, which were established to try and defuse the political crisis in the region.
