Two men were being questioned in Belfast last night in connection with the killing of Mr Andrew Kearney in the city nine days ago. The RUC said the two were arrested yesterday morning.
Mr Kearney (33) was dragged from a flat in New Lodge, north Belfast, last Sunday week and shot three times in the legs by a gang of men. The father of four young girls bled to death from his injuries.
Last week the RUC said the IRA was involved in the killing.
Meanwhile, the SDLP Assembly member for West Belfast, Dr Joe Hendron, has praised Mr Kearney's mother for her "integrity and courage" in insisting that Sinn Fein members should be allowed to take their places on the new Northern Ireland Executive.
Unionists have demanded that Sinn Fein be excluded from the Assembly executive since the RUC said the IRA was involved in the attack.
Mrs Maureen Kearney has said she does not believe Sinn Fein should be punished for the attack. She blamed "renegade elements of the IRA" for killing her son.
"I don't want politicians to be making party political points as a result of Andrew's death. I think that some of them [politicians] are delighted that Sinn Fein might get put out.
"Without them what hope have we got? If they kick Sinn Fein out we'll be back to square one. I don't blame Sinn Fein for this but I do blame elements within the IRA," Mrs Kearney said in an interview with the Irish News yesterday.
She said she had written to the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, the Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, and the US President, Mr Bill Clinton, saying Sinn Fein should not be penalised for her son's murder.
Dr Hendron agreed with Mrs Kearney that Sinn Fein must remain an integral part of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
"Like Mrs Kearney, I believe that Gerry Adams and his colleagues in Sinn Fein are sincerely trying to bring the republican movement down the road of democracy," he said.
Dr Hendron, the former MP for West Belfast, said it seemed "probable" that Mr Kearney was killed by an element within the North Belfast IRA as part of a personal vendetta. "All those who knew Mr Kearney speak very highly of him," he added.
Mrs Kearney said the republican movement needed "to clean up its act".
The day after her son's killing, she told journalists she had been a republican all her life and had gone to senior Sinn Fein members when her son received threats on previous occasions.
She admitted her son was "a hothead" and had a habit of getting into fights.
It is believed Mr Kearney was shot because he became involved in a fight in a west Belfast bar some weeks ago.
A prominent republican from north Belfast was beaten up in the brawl.
Mr Kearney was staying in a flat with his girlfriend and two-week-old baby daughter when the men entered and dragged him to a lift where he was shot three times in the legs.
They then ripped the phone in the flat from the wall, leaving Mr Kearney's girlfriend to run to a friend's apartment in a nearby tower block to call an ambulance.
He had bled to death by the time he arrived in hospital.