A campaigner for victims of the Troubles was arrested yesterday after refusing to leave a hotel close to the Northern Ireland peace talks but was later released .
Mr Willie Frazer was bundled into a police van by officers after a row flared at the media centre near Leeds Castle, Kent, where British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair and the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, are trying to strike a deal to restore the power-sharing executive in Belfast.
Mr Frazer, director of the south Armagh group Families Acting for Innocent Relatives (FAIR), had resisted attempts by staff at the Ramada Hotel in Hollingbourne to get him off the premises.
As he was driven off, police said he had been held to prevent a breach of the peace.
A wedding party watched in disbelief as the brief struggle happened.
Mr Frazer, whose father and other relatives have been murdered by the IRA, travelled to the negotiations to lobby the political parties.
He wants a special victims' commissioner to examine the killings in Northern Ireland, and funding for those whose relatives were killed during the Troubles.
The activist's researcher, Mr William Wilkinson, claimed republicans and the authorities did not want them to be there.
"We are being treated differently from other paying hotel customers," he said.
"Sinn Féin or the Northern Ireland Office didn't want us to be here. We came to Leeds Castle to get the victims issue raised and this is how they deal with a peaceful protest." An NIO spokesman denied Mr Wilkinson's accusation. - (PA)