Two held over McCartney killing
Two men were tonight being questioned by police investigating the murder of Robert McCartney.
Armed officers smashed down a door to seize one of the men in an early morning raid at a bedsit in Birmingham.
A second man was detained in Belfast as part of an arrest operation which relatives believe could signal a major breakthrough in the police investigation.
Mr McCartney, 33, from the Short Strand area of Belfast, was murdered by IRA men after being dragged from a city centre bar four months ago.
The two arrested come from the neighbouring Markets area but one had been staying in Birmingham for the past three weeks.
The man, 36, was wearing just his boxer shorts when police burst in to his bedsit in the Stechford area of the city.
Eyewitnesses described how he was led barefoot to a waiting police car in Victoria Road.
He was flown back to Northern Ireland for questioning by a team of detectives headed by Inspector Kevin Dunwoody.
The other man, aged 29, was arrested in Belfast.
Police confirmed the two men can be held for questioning at Antrim for 72 hours.
Mr McCartney died after he was beaten and stabbed outside Magennis’s Bar in Belfast city centre on January 30.
His sister, Catherine McCartney, said she hoped the arrests would signal a major breakthrough in the investigation.
No one has yet been charged in connection with the murder even though key suspects and several customers who were in the bar at the time have been interviewed.
Mrs McCartney said: “We obviously welcome these arrests but remain cautious.
“People have been arrested before and let out.
“Others have walked into police stations, stared at walls and said nothing.”
It is understood the man arrested in Birmingham had been staying at the rented flat in Victoria Road for just three weeks.
Student Paul Ireland, whose top floor flat is in a building adjacent to the bedsit where the arrest was made, said he heard officers smash down an internal door.
The 21-year-old told reporters: “I didn’t even know this man was living there.
“The flat had been empty and when I heard someone in there, I thought they were just doing some building work.
“When they knocked down the door, they hit it so hard that it shook our door.”
Mr Ireland later looked out of his window and saw the man who was arrested being led to a waiting police car.
“He was just wearing his boxer shorts, he was barefoot and they just put him into the car. He had a shaved head and was of large build but that’s all I could tell you about him.”
A neighbour who lives next door to the second-floor bedsit where the 36-year-old was arrested told reporters he was woken by the sound of police officers battering open a side gate to the property.
The neighbour, who declined to give his name, said: “When I looked out, the police were round the back with guns.
“There was a big crash and it was a shock seeing two policemen armed.
“When I came out into the road they were all lined up with vans and everything.
“I didn’t see anybody being led out – there was no shouting and everything appeared to be very calm.”
Another resident, Eunice McGhie-Belgrave, said she had not been woken by the police raid.
But she added: “When I looked out of the window at about 7.30 I saw the police were still there and a man in a white suit was examining a car parked in the street.”
Senior members of the IRA in the Markets and Short Strand areas, where Mr McCartney lived with his partner and two children, are believed to have been involved in the murder, which led to the Provisionals expelling three men.
Several Sinn Féin members have also been suspended and some thrown out of the party.
Commenting on the arrests, SDLP South Belfast MP Dr Alasdair McDonnell said: “I hope this is a real breakthrough in the family’s search for justice and not another false dawn such as we have seen before.”
