The PSNI have charged one man with the murder of Robert McCartney and another with the attempted murder of his friend following an attack outside a Belfast bar in January blamed on IRA members.
“One faces a charge of murder, the other faces a charge of attempted murder,” a police spokeswoman said. “The charges relate to the murder of Robert McCartney and the attempted murder of Brendan Devine."
Mr McCartney ( 33), a father of two, was beaten and stabbed after being dragged from Magennis's bar near the Markets district on January 30th this year.
Three members of the IRA allegedly involved were later expelled from the organisation.
The two men due in court tomorrow are aged 36 and 49. One was arrested in Birmingham and the second in Belfast.
Mr McCartney 's sister Catherine said tonight she was pleased with the breakthrough in the police investigation. “We hope it will lead to further arrests because there were more than two people involved. We still have a long way to go in terms of a trial and convictions.”
Mr McCartney's wife and sisters have led a
campaign to pressurise the many witnesses to the murder to come forward. They have received politcal support in Ireland and Britain and also from the European Parliament and the US administration.
The killing led to a public and political outcry against the IRA and Sinn Féin.
Despite the IRA's ceaefire reaminaing strong, members of the paramilitary group have been involved various types of criminality such as feud-based killings, so-called punishment beatings, smuggling and robberies.
They were blamed for the biggest bank raid in Irish history when £26.5 million was stolen from a Belfast branch of the Northern Bank last Decemeber.
Mr McCartney and Mr Devine had been drinking together in the bar when a row broke out. He was then taken outside where he was battered and stabbed in an alleyway. Later, CCTV footage was allegedly removed as part of an attempt by the killers to clean the pub of all evidence.
The IRA said it expelled three men as public pressure mounted over the killing. Sinn Féin also suspended a number of party members who were in the bar at the time and who allegedly failed to act on president Gerry Adams' demands to disclose what they knew or saw on the night of the killing.
In Derry yesterday, detectives took statements from more than 150 witnesses. Ten people provided signed statements through the offices of the Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan.