April 2011Last updated at 18:00

Policeman killed in Omagh car bomb attack

A police officer has been killed after a bomb exploded under his car in Omagh, County Tyrone.

The device exploded under the vehicle outside his home in Highfield Close, off the Gortin Road, just before 1600 BST on Saturday.

It is not clear if there have been any other casualties.

Since 2007, dissident republicans have planted dozens of booby-trap bombs under the private cars of police officers in Northern Ireland.

The bombs have failed to detonate, but two policemen lost their legs in attacks in May 2008 and January 2010.

In March 2009, a police officer was shot dead as he answered a distress call in Craigavon, County Armagh.

Dissident republican group, the Continuity IRA, claimed responsibility for the attack. Constable Stephen Carroll, 48, was married and from Banbridge.

He was murdered two days after the Real IRA shot dead two soldiers outside Massereene Barracks in Antrim.

The Continuity IRA is one of a number of dissident republican paramilitary groups opposed to the peace process. They have carried out bomb and gun attacks on civilians and the security forces.

There is believed to be cross-over and co-operation between the Continuity IRA and the larger Real IRA, which bombed Omagh in 1998, killing 29 people and injuring hundreds more.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-12947225

As much as I don’t agree with this attack on a purely personal level, I see no advantage from the security services and the civil administration in our Province (civil service) having a large percentage of their staff numbers from the Irish Roman Catholic community.

If he was in the GAA in Tyrone then it could have been some of those who set him up. It only takes one to have known he was in the police, though I'm fairly sure it would have been known by more than one what his job was.

Thought the policeman's mother spoke well. How she managed to at a time like this I don't know but fair play to her she said we mustn't let these people win.

MARTIN McGuinness has caused shock after appearing to disclose how murdered PSNI officer Ronan Kerr voted.

Speaking at an event for Sinn Fein supporters in Belfast, the deputy first minister claimed that the slain 25-year-old had voted for his party.

A respected blogger, Alan Meban, who reported on the event for the Slugger O’Toole website said that Mr McGuinness’s comment had “felt like a remarkable and inappropriate statement for a politician to make in a public forum. “Others in the audience were taken aback by his admission,” he said. “And while uttered in response to a question that was clearly probing how far Sinn Fein were committed to the outworking of their policing policy, it felt very uncomfortable for the politics and voting record – true or perceived – of a dead man to be discussed.”

Mr McGuinness had been asked by a member of the audience at the Wellington Park Hotel in south Belfast whether any “middle ranking or even junior members of Sinn Fein” had joined the PSNI.

After a long pause, the Sinn Fein MP replied: “I went down to see Nuala within hours of her son being killed. And it was very obvious from being in that household that many of the family circle were Sinn Fein voters.

“And I would go so far as to say that Ronan Kerr voted for Sinn Fein, and joined the police because he wanted to be part of change and wanted to support the peace process.”

Pressed after the event by the blogger about whether his comment was appropriate, given that voting is private and the officer is so recently and brutally murdered, Mr McGuinness said: “I don’t think I was politicising his death. It has never been contested that he was an Irishman, that he was nationalist-minded, that he was republican-minded, that he was a supporter of the GAA. So I don’t think that offends anybody.”

The deputy first minister added: “I actually think people should take encouragement from the fact that there are now young people who are motivated by the best possible ideals, prepared to join the police.”

Last night SDLP deputy leader Patsy McGlone declined to comment, claiming that to do so would further politicise the family’s grief.

But Ulster Unionist Policing Board member Basil McCrea said he was “surprised” at Mr McGuinness’s claim.

“I have no idea whether it is true or not but the whole idea of democracy is that you are allowed to have your own views and keep them secret.”

The Lagan Valley representative added: “But coming from a unionist perspective, we would normally not be in the business of commenting on people who have died in tragic circumstances about what way they might have thought about things.”

A Sinn Fein spokesman said that it was important to remember that the comments were not gratuitous but had been made during lengthy questions to Mr McGuinness about republicans joining the PSNI.

“Martin said Ronan Kerr was an Irishman, a nationalist and that it would not have been surprised him if he was minded to vote Sinn Fein.”

http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/loc...vote_1_2590655