Police have arrested three more people in the North in the investigation into a raid on Special Branch offices.
Using anti-terrorist legislation, police searched premises in Belfast and Derry hoping to find evidence linking republicans to the break-in at the top-security police station in Castlereagh, east Belfast.
According to republican sources, both men are prominent republican figures, including an ex-IRA prisoner in the Maze jail near Lisburn, Co Antrim. They said he was one of the leading hunger strike protesters when republican prisoners sought political status in 1980.
|
Officers search houses and taxi offices in Derry. It is believed a caravan in Co Donegal was also targeted.
The latest arrests came days after detectives seized six people in the two cities as part of their inquiries into the burglary last month when highly sensitive files on Special Branch informers and their police handlers were stolen.
Five of those were released without charge, and the sixth has been accused of having information useful to terrorists. This material did not relate to the files stolen from Castlereagh.
Mr Mitchell McLaughlin, the Sinn Féin chairman and Assembly member for Foyle, claimed the latest seizures was further proof that the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) was mounting a cover up over the Castlereagh raid.
Intelligence agencies had been suspected of stealing the documents before the weekend arrests.
Mr McLaughlin said: "These actions are completely unacceptable and must end. The PSNI Special Branch cover-up into the raid on Castlereagh is now in full swing . . . but people will not be fooled and republicans will not be scapegoated".