UK: Northern Ireland Police Charge Seven Men With Attempted Murder of Detective

The police in Northern Ireland have charged seven men with attempted murder following the shooting of a senior detective in the region. This comes as law enforcement has been sporadically attacked by fringe groups in the province even after the implementation of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

A police statement over the weekend said seven men have been charged with attempted murder of senior Northern Ireland Police Service detective John Caldwell. Caldwell was shot multiple times on February 22 while off-duty and coaching at a youth sports complex in Omagh. Two of the men are aged 28, while the rest are aged 33, 38, 45, 47, and 72 and are expected to appear before the Dungannon Magistrates Court on Monday.

The police revealed additional charges against the seven men. The 38-year-old and the 45-year-old were also suspected and charged of being members of a proscribed organization, the Irish Republican Army. Three of the men, one of the 28-year-olds, the 33-year-old, and the 47-year-old are charged with preparation of terrorist acts.

“These charges are welcome news. I would like to thank the PSNI for their efforts and the progress they have made in the case,” tweeted British Northern Ireland minister Chris Heaton-Harris.

The incident comes at a time when law enforcement are sporadically subjected to violence caused by fringe groups even after the 1998 Good Friday Agreement which largely ended decades of political violence in the province. The fringe groups are mostly nationalist militants who remain opposed to the United Kingdom’s rule over the province.

On Tuesday last week, the leader of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Union Jeffrey Donaldson said the DUP will be asking the UK for extra funds for the province as a condition for restoring the region’s power-sharing government and breaking the political deadlock. The DUP has been in talks with London in restoring the power-sharing government in Belfast, which collapsed in February last year in protest of the post-Brexit trade rules between the UK and the European Union.

A deal brokered in February this year to revise the trade rules, now called the Windsor Framework was rejected by the DUP, worsening the crisis. The DUP has since confirmed that it would seek a financial package along with its request for legislation that would ensure protections for Northern Ireland’s ability to freely trade with the rest of the UK.

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