Four people, including two prominent dissident republicans, were being questioned by detectives last night after early morning arrests in Co Louth yesterday. The arrests were made under anti-terrorist laws introduced after the "Real IRA" bombing of Omagh on August 15th, 1998, in which 29 people were killed and 300 injured.
Detectives involved in the case have spent more than a year building a case concerning the directing of the "Real IRA".
An offence of "directing an unlawful organisation" was introduced by the Government as an amendment to the Offences Against the State Act two weeks after the Omagh bombing. The provision, made for an offence of directing at any level of the organisation's structure, carries a penalty of up to life imprisonment. The same amendment also removes the right to silence and allows courts to draw an inference from a suspect's refusal to answer questions.
It also provides for a person to be convicted of membership of an unlawful organisation on the testimony of a senior Garda officer, with corroboration.
Two of the arrested people were taken to Balbriggan Garda station at about 7 a.m. yesterday. The two others were arrested a short while later in Dundalk and were last night being questioned at Drogheda.
A Garda spokesman last evening said the arrests were "part of an ongoing investigation into paramilitary activities". The Garda Special Detective Unit, which investigates terrorist crime, has been leading the investigation with the help of the Garda National Bureau of Crime Investigation. The bureau investigation has been under way for more than a year with detectives from its Dublin headquarters seconded to Dundalk for lengthy periods.
This is the first time such arrests have been made in the State. The same offence came into force in Northern Ireland in the early 1990s and was used to convict the Ulster Freedom Fighters figure Johnny Adair.
He was sentenced to 16 years' imprisonment in 1994 but was released in 1999 under the early release scheme for terrorist groups adhering to ceasefire. He was returned to prison last year during the loyalist feud.