Four people were being questioned last night by police officers investigating the murder of Mr Rab McCartney who was stabbed outside a Belfast city centre pub on Sunday night. Dan Keenan reports.
One of those detained is being questioned in relation to offences connected to the murder while the others are being held in relation to the murder itself.
Detectives arrested three people yesterday in the Co Down village of Killough about 25 miles from the murder scene. They were taken in for questioning following a search at a house. A further search was carried out in the nationalist Short Strand of Belfast not far from where Mr McCartney was stabbed.
The 33-year-old father of two from Mountpottinger Road, east Belfast, was wounded in an incident involving up to five other people and died on Monday in hospital.
The PSNI officially called the investigation a murder case later that day.
Republicans have again angrily denied that the death was paramilitary linked and accusations that subsequent street violence was orchestrated to stymie the PSNI investigation.
South Belfast Assembly member, Mr Alex Maskey, denounced members of the SDLP and the main unionist parties accusing them of politicking on the back of a tragedy.
Sinn Féin's Mr Martin McGuinness, who met the Northern Secretary, Mr Paul Murphy, yesterday for talks, said: "Speaking as someone who was a member of the IRA in the past but who has been involved heart and soul in trying to build this peace process over the last 10 years, I abhor all violence of any description. I am totally opposed to it. I deplore it and I am doing everything in my power to try and make this a better place for our children to live in "
He added: "At the same time I do think that the PSNI need to catch themselves on. I think behaving like the old RUC is a huge mistake."
Mr McGuinness described the police searches following the Northern Bank raid and in the immediate aftermath of the McCartney murder as "nothing short of a disgrace".
"It is very provocative and raises all sorts of tensions and emotions and does not do any of us, including the PSNI, any good whatsoever. People should be brought to justice for killing whoever is killed I don't think our credentials in any of this are open to question from anyone. I stand on a very clear, exclusively, non-violent platform."