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Catholic leader addresses PC Ronan Kerr mourners as arrest is made in Scotland after 'significant' weapons find
Prison officers in Northern Ireland have become the latest targets of republican dissident terrorists behind the murder of a police officer who was buried on Wednesday.
As PSNI detectives waited to question a 26-year-old man arrested in Scotland in connection with Constable Ronan Kerr's killing, security sources said the Real IRA, the Continuity IRA and Oglaigh na hEireann have been gathering intelligence on prison officers.
The arrest followed the discovery of an arms cache including Kalashnikovs, detonators and rocket launcher parts in east Tyrone, which police described as one of the most significant such finds in years.
The Prison Officers Association confirmed a number of members and their families have moved out of their homes over the past six months after receiving threats.
Finlay Spratt, POA spokesman in Northern Ireland, said: "Our officers are being moved from their homes. Many of them have been under threat for some time. We get messages from time to time that the lives of our members are in danger ... in recent weeks at least one officer had to move out of his home."
One veteran security official said the anti-ceasefire republicans were "actively targeting" prison staff as well as more Catholic police officers across the north: "They have the intelligence, they have the targets and they have demonstrated their willingness to carry out their threats."
There are 1,600 prison officers serving in jails in Northern Ireland including top security Maghaberry prison where most dissident republican inmates are held.
Armed police arrested a man in the small town of Renton in Dunbartonshire, west of Glasgow, on Wednesday lunchtime. He was taken to the high-security police station at Govan, south Glasgow.
The PSNI said there has been a very significant arms find in the Coalisland area of east Tyrone on Tuesday night and were linking the arrest to the raid, which is thought to have yielded some Semtex.
Assistant Chief Constable Drew Harris said: "Detectives from Serious Crime Branch who are investigating Ronan's murder have made a significant discovery of arms and munitions – one of the most significant in recent years."
The weapons were found inside stolen cars in a garage unit in Coalisland. Police said they were being "fast-tracked for forensic examination" and formed one line of inquiry in the murder investigation.
The leader of Ireland's Catholics issued an appeal to republican dissidents to end their terror campaigns.
Cardinal Sean Brady told mourners the murder of the 25-year-old Catholic officer was "an evil deed, an offence against God". He added that since the murder people have been saying: "We do not want this. In God's name stop – and stop now."
Directly appealing to the anti-ceasefire republicans, he said: "Choose life, I say, choose goodness, choose peace."
The funeral was a display of unity among leading figures from Irish politics, policing and sport. Among mourners in Beragh outside Omagh were the Northern Ireland first and deputy first ministers, Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness, Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny, and Chief Constable Matt Baggott. The head of the PSNI was joined by his Irish counterpart, the Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan.
In a symbolic gesture police officers and members of Kerr's Gaelic Athletic Association club, the Beragh Red Knights, formed a guard of honour and helped carry the coffin. Up until 2001, under the GAA's controversial Rule 21, members of the security forces in Northern Ireland were barred from playing Gaelic sports.
RonanKerr belonged to his local GAA club the Beragh Red Knights and members of the team worse their team jerseys alongside uniformed PSNI officers outside the church. Among the mourners to stand by the Kerr family was Tyrone gaelic football manager Mickey Harte whose daughter Michaela was murdered this year while on honeymoon in Mauritius.
No group has claimed responsibility for the killing but dissident republicans have been blamed. Although there has been widespread abhorrence across Ireland it is unlikely, in the short term at least, that this will push any of the three main dissident groups towards a ceasefire. Graffiti scrawled on a wall in the Bogside area of Derry this week warned of more killings if young Catholics continued to join the police force in Northern Ireland.