Four former loyalists facing firearms, drugs and kidnapping charges on the Costa del Sol earlier this week are understood to have been associates of a gang that was involved in a feud last year with criminals from Dublin and England.
The four, arrested at a villa near Torremolinos, include Mr Stephen Harbinson (35), a former member of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) who was jailed for the murder of Mr Adam Lambert (19), a Protestant who was mistaken by his killers for a Catholic in Co Tyrone in 1988. He was one of the prisoners released early under the terms of the Belfast Agreement.
Mr Harbinson was also an associate of Mr William Stobie, the UDA man who was cleared earlier this week of charges relating to the murder of a Catholic solicitor, Mr Pat Finucane. It is understood Mr Harbinson left Northern Ireland earlier this summer after the seizure of drugs in a Protestant area of north Belfast.
Mr Harbinson and three other Belfast men, who police named as Mr Donald Marno (40), his brother, Gary (37), and Mr Alasdair McKendrie (37), are being held in prison.
All three are known to have associations with the UDA. Mr Gary Marno was jailed in 1988 for being a member of a UDA extortion gang which was exposed by investigative television journalist Roger Cook.
The four were arrested after police allegedly found two sub-machine guns, a pistol, handcuffs, false passports and identity documents, a small amount of hashish and what Spanish police described as "drug trafficking equipment". They face charges of drug trafficking and possession of arms, kidnap, dealing in stolen vehicles and having false documents.
The kidnap charge is understood to relate to an attempt to kidnap a leading English criminal reputed to have connections with the gang that murdered journalist Veronica Guerin. The man was freed when police were apparently tipped off and intervened. However, the gang escaped.
At least two members of the gang which murdered Ms Guerin in June 1996 have been living in Spain for the last two years and are known to be associated with a number of former leading English criminals. They are linked through their common association with another English criminal figure who laundered cash for the gang which murdered Ms Guerin.
Mr Harbinson was released from prison two years ago. He served 12 years for the murder of Mr Lambert.
The murder was apparently in retaliation for the Poppy Day bomb in Enniskillen in which 11 Protestants died.