PSNI launch new security operation after fugitive is caught

A number of homes in Ederowen Park area evacuated in a follow-up operation after the capture of the man sought by police after the murder of Barry McCrory in the city last Thursday. An Army bomb squad was at the scene.

Police on both sides of the Irish border had been hunting 58-year-old Kieran McLaughlin for seven days.

He is a suspect in the murder of Barry McCrory, 35, who was shot dead in a city centre flat last Thursday.

McLaughlin was arrested by officers from the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) in the Gallaigh area of Derry at around 3am.

It is understood he was armed, but no shots were fired during the arrest operation.

Mr McCrory was shot by a lone gunman inside the flat he shared with his partner on Shipquay Street. She was bundled into another room in the apartment before the fatal shots were fired.

McLaughlin’s family had urged him to hand himself to the authorities.

The six-hour operation that culminated with the arrest began in the Irish Republic yesterday evening when Mr McLaughlin was spotted in a silver car in Co Donegal.

Gardai followed the vehicle until it crossed over the border into Northern Ireland, when the PSNI took over. The car was subsequently abandoned and another vehicle was taken.

At around 3am Mr McLaughlin was found behind a car parked in a garden in the Fern Park area of Londonderry.

PSNI Chief Inspector Andy Lemon said the operation had been “tricky, lengthy and high-pressured”.

“This has been going on for seven days,” he said. “There’s been an awful lot of officers deployed. I am just glad we were able to bring this to a successful conclusion and there were no shots fired and there was no one hurt.”

The senior officer told Radio Foyle: “It was a constant operation, constant movement, constant follow-ups through the whole area, it was high pressure.”

Mr Lemon said a follow-up operation was going on to establish whether there were further firearms in the vehicles involved.

Foyle police yesterday warned that other people were in danger as the hunt continued for Mr McLaughlin.

The video accompanying this story was made at the scene of Mr McCrory’s murder on Thursday.