GARDAÍ HAVE searched an apartment in Dublin at the request of the 100-strong PSNI detective team investigating the murder of Constable Ronan Kerr.
Members of the Garda’s Special Detective Unit carried out the search yesterday morning as officers in the North arrested a 40-year-old suspect in connection with the murder. He was detained while driving a van near Omagh.
The apartment searched in Dublin is located near Clarehall and Darndale and was searched because the man arrested in Tyrone, a suspected senior dissident republican, is believed to have lived there of late.
The apartment was examined for a number of hours and items were taken from it for examination.
The 26-year-old man detained by Scottish police in Dumbartonshire and returned to Northern Ireland on Wednesday has been rearrested, again directly in connection with the investigation into the booby-trap bombing of Constable Kerr’s car last Saturday.
Officers said their inquiry is progressing thanks to valuable information being given by the public.
“Very valuable information has already come into the inquiry which has been of great assistance to us,” Assistant Chief Constable Drew Harris said. Further arrests are possible.
Referring to the detention of a man while driving a van near Omagh, Mr Harris confirmed: “There has been an arrest in the Omagh area of a 40-year-old man on suspicion of murder of Ronan Kerr and also on suspicion of firearms offences. In addition, the man arrested in Scotland has been rearrested again on suspicion of the murder of Ronan Kerr.”
He confirmed the discovery of weapons and explosives in the Coalisland area of east Tyrone was “a significant find” but would not confirm if it came as a result of information received by the inquiry into Mr Kerr’s murder.
“All of [the weapons cache] has to be subject to forensic examination and at this stage it’s too early to comment on the age or the origin of the weapons and other materials. It’s obviously a live line of inquiry for our investigation, which we are pursuing.”
Officers uncovered the weapons haul in a number of cars at a lock-up premises in the Coalisland area. The cache included four rifles – thought to be Kalashnikovs – six loaded ammunition magazines, timer power units for use in bombs, detonators, incendiary devices, components for rocket launchers and other explosive devices as well as high explosives, possibly Semtex.
A number of the cars had been given false identification marks.
Mr Harris added: “The weapons have been subjected to a full scientific investigation. Whatever view we may have had of those, it’s pointless in me speculating as to their age.”
Asked about which dissident republican group may have carried out the murder of Constable Kerr, Mr Harris said: “No attribution has been claimed in respect of this murder and I’m not focused on groups at the moment.
“I’m concentrating on the individuals who were involved . . . [and] also the wider criminal and terrorist activity which is going on in Tyrone. These groups are fluid, it is pointless that I focus solely on one particular grouping to the exclusion of others. I’m focusing on the individuals who are involved in this murder and other criminal conspiracies.”
He said more arrests are expected, but only if more information from the public is received.
“We have to see how the investigation develops. As things develop and evidence comes into the inquiry then we will make more arrests.” He said he was not going to comment on the quality of received intelligence. “It would be wrong to do so,” he added.
PSNI officers have returned to the murder scene in the Highfield area in Omagh as part of a concerted effort to gain new information from people who were in the area in the two days before Constable Kerr was killed.
Det Supt Raymond Murray confirmed that the device had been planted under Constable Kerr’s car before a mini-marathon and fun run passed the scene.
“We already know it was murderous. Now we have evidence that it was potentially indiscriminate,” he said.