Journalists who worked on film about mass killing in N. Ireland arrested
LONDON — Two journalists who worked on a documentary about a mass killing in Northern Ireland have been arrested on suspicion of stealing confidential documents.
Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney tweeted Friday that Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey had been detained, calling it “outrageous.”
Birney and McCaffrey worked on Gibney’s 2017 documentary “No Stone Unturned” about a 1994 massacre in the town of Loughinisland.
Six people were killed when gunmen from the Protestant paramilitary gang, the Ulster Volunteer Force, burst into a bar and opened fire with automatic rifles on customers watching Ireland play Italy in a World Cup soccer match.
The film explored the botched investigation and allegations of police collusion in the attack.
Police said two men, aged 51 and 28, were arrested in Belfast on Friday morning by officers investigating the alleged theft of documents from Northern Ireland’s police ombudsman (PONI). The Durham Constabulary was asked to conduct an independent investigation into the alleged theft by the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
“This morning’s arrests are a significant development in what has been a complex investigation,” a spokesman for Durham Constabulary said, according to the Belfast Telegraph.
“The terms of reference given to our inquiry were clear in that the investigation is solely into the alleged theft of material from PONI. The theft of these documents potentially puts lives at risk and we will follow the evidence wherever it leads us.”
from https://ift.tt/2wtVL75
No comments