The RUC has confirmed the arrest of a woman after flammable liquid was poured through the letter-box of a house in west Belfast owned by the mother of Mr Martin McGartland, the IRA informer. The liquid failed to ignite, and Mrs McGartland was not injured.
Mr McGartland, the author of Fifty Dead Men Walking, survived being shot six times last June outside his home in Whitley Bay on Tyneside. He has been living in the northeast of England since 1991 after being uncovered as an informer.
A report in yesterday's Sun]day Times alleged that Mr McGartland had been given 28 days' notice to leave his secure accommodation, a police cell in the north of England. He is reported to have been told by Northumbria police to vacate the cell by March 15th and take up a security services offer of a new identity.