Arrests may be linked to Shankill killings

RUC detectives investigating two killings in Belfast's Shankill area have arrested two men.

RUC detectives investigating two killings in Belfast's Shankill area have arrested two men.

They are believed to have been questioned in connection with the deaths of Mr Jackie Coulter and Mr Bobby Mahood, who were shot as they sat in a car in north Belfast in August. An RUC spokeswoman would confirm only that the two men were being questioned in connection with "serious crime in the Shankill area".

The arrests came three days after a man and a 15-year-old appeared in court on charges linked to a gun attack on the Rex Bar in the Shankill area which occurred only days before the double-killing.

A third man, Mr Sam Rocket, was killed several days later. The feuding sides reached a truce earlier this month. Meanwhile, the UVF's political representative, the Progressive Unionist Party, is reported to be holding a closed-door conference in two weeks' time to review the effects of the loyalist feud.

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The party leader, Mr David Ervine, said it had been difficult to run a political party against a "backdrop of attack and fear" over the last two months. The conference would give party members a forum to privately air grievances which may have arisen, he added.