A 41-year-old man, reportedly prominent Northern Ireland republican politician Colin Duffy, was due in court on Friday, charged with the murders of two British soldiers outside their barracks.

Belfast police said on Thursday the man had been charged with two counts of murder in connection with the shooting of the soldiers as they collected pizza outside the Masserene barracks northwest of Belfast on 7 March.

He was also charged with five counts of attempted murder — several other people were injured in the attack — and with possessing a firearm and ammunition. He was due to appear at Larne Magistrates' Court early on Friday.

Britain's domestic news agency, the Press Association, said the man was Colin Duffy, a republican who has distanced himself from the mainstream Sinn Fein party since it agreed to share power with pro-London Protestant unionists.

"A 41-year-old man has tonight been charged with eight offences, that is two kinds of murder, five kinds of attempted murder and one count of possession of a firearm and ammunition with intent to endanger life," police said on Thursday.

The soldiers' deaths were followed within 48 hours by the murder of on-duty police constable Stephen Carroll, the first such killing in the British-ruled province in 11 years.

It sparked fears of a return to the sectarian violence that raged for three decades until the 1998 Good Friday peace accords led to power-sharing between Catholic republican Sinn Fein and the Protestant Democratic Unionists (DUP).

In a speech in Belfast late on Thursday, Irish premier Brian Cowen condemned the dissident republicans who claimed the attacks, saying: "They want to drag us back to a bitter and divided past."

He praised Northern Ireland's leaders for their "clear and passionate rejection of this attack on the peace process."

Duffy was arrested on 14 March but released on Wednesday — along with five others held over the three killings — following a successful High Court appeal against his extended detention. He was immediately re-arrested.

His original arrest sparked violence, with gangs of youths throwing petrol bombs at police near Duffy's home in Lurgan, southwest of Belfast.

The murders of sappers Mark Quinsey (23) and Cengiz "Patrick" Azimkar (21) were claimed by the Real IRA (Irish Republican Army), paramilitaries who broke off from the main IRA in 1997 and still oppose the peace process.

Duffy came to prominence in the 1990s after being acquitted of the IRA murder of a soldier when it emerged that a key witness was a loyalist paramilitary committed to Northern Ireland being part of Britain.

He was later arrested over the IRA murder of two police officers in 1997, but the case against him collapsed amid huge controversy. His lawyer received threats and was later murdered in a car bomb attack at her home in 1999.

Three people have been charged in connection with Carroll's death, which was claimed by another republican splinter group, the Continuity IRA.

AFP

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