Constable Kerr's murder suspect arrested

After the murder of Ronan Kerr, it may be the end of a nightmare of more than a year of researches

On the 26^th of November, in Britain, a man from Northern Ireland has been arrested regarding the tragedy of the 2^nd of April 2011, in which the Northen Ireland policeman Ronan Kerr was murdered.

The 22-year-old suspect was arrested by the North West Counter Terrorism Unit at the request of PSNI Serious Crime Branch detectives. His identity being kept anonymous to the public, all is known about him is that he comes from Omagh, in County Tyrone. But he was detained in Milton Keynes in England, as the police had widened their investigation to the northwest of England.

On the 27^th, another man has been arrested, a 39-year-old man from the same town as the first suspect. He is being questionned by the police about incidents related to the murder.

Ronan Kerr, 25 years old, had been killed by a bomb exploding under his car in front of his home, according to the Police Service of Northern Ireland. He was a young man from Beragh, a village 8 miles from Omagh. Roman Catholic, he had been recently recruited by the PSNI, which before the peace deal was predominantly made up of Protestants and viewed with scepticism by many Catholics. In the British-controlled province, Kerr was the first policeman killed for two years.

Speaking on BBC Radio Ulster on the Wednesday following the tragedy, the Irish prime minister Mr Enda Kenny had firmly condemned the attack: “To those who think they are doing something for Ireland, this is a warped mentality.”

“It is the mentality of the past, a very dark and violent past and it has no part in the future”, he had added.

Hard to forget are the decades of violence of Troubles in Ireland, which claimed over 3,600 lives. The Ulster issue is still at the heart of British and Irish political life today.

Indeed, international monitors confirmed in 2005 that the Provisional Irish Republican Army had given up all its weapons, however dissidents disenchanted with the peace process. Today, the so-called New IRA, which has claimed the death of constable Kerr, has increased violent activity in recent years. Earlier this year, militant nationalist groups in Northern Ireland united under their banner.

And the violence continues: in early November, the Northern Ireland prison officer David Black was shot dead in his car on his way to work. These actions were claimed by Irish nationalists. It is the first time in nearly 20 years that a member of the Northern Ireland Prison Service has been murdered. His family and friends were shocked.

Prime Minister David Cameron expressed his concern and his grief to the family:

“My heart goes out to them. These killers will not succeed in denying the people of Northern Ireland the peaceful, shared future they so desperately want.”

Only time will tell if this peaceful future will be reached.

This article was written for a university assignment.