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11/09/2008
Five Arrested Over Journalist's Murder
Police investigating the murder of journalist Martin O'Hagan have arrested five people in counties Down and Armagh.
The Sunday World reporter was gunned down by loyalist paramilitaries in 2001.
The Lurgan man, 51, was walking home from a night out with his wife when the attack happened.
Having written a series of exposé articles on loyalist drug dealing and security force collusion, Mr O'Hagan's life had been under threat.
The journalist's last action before he died was to push his wife into a hedge to save her.
The National Union of Journalist has alleged a police cover-up over the killing, as it believes the the perpetrators were informers.
On Tuesday, four men and a woman were arrested in Lurgan and Banbridge.
The five are being questioned by the PSNI's Retrospective Murder Review Unit at the Antrim Serious Crime Suite.
The Red Hand Defenders originally claimed responsibility for the assassination.
The group is a cover name for the Loyalist Volunteer Force and the Ulster Defence Association.
An inquest into Mr O'Hagan's death, held in 2006, found that he had been targeted for exposing the drug dealing activities of loyalist paramilitaries in Mid Ulster.
At the hearing his wife, Marie, said: "I became aware of a car slowing down. I saw a gun in one of the windows,
"Martin became aware of the car and pushed me towards the hedge. I fell into the hedge and heard a number of shots. Martin shouted 'Marie, get an ambulance'."
Police have reissued an appeal for information about the murder and want anyone who can help to contact the retrospective murder review unit.
(PR/JM)
The Sunday World reporter was gunned down by loyalist paramilitaries in 2001.
The Lurgan man, 51, was walking home from a night out with his wife when the attack happened.
Having written a series of exposé articles on loyalist drug dealing and security force collusion, Mr O'Hagan's life had been under threat.
The journalist's last action before he died was to push his wife into a hedge to save her.
The National Union of Journalist has alleged a police cover-up over the killing, as it believes the the perpetrators were informers.
On Tuesday, four men and a woman were arrested in Lurgan and Banbridge.
The five are being questioned by the PSNI's Retrospective Murder Review Unit at the Antrim Serious Crime Suite.
The Red Hand Defenders originally claimed responsibility for the assassination.
The group is a cover name for the Loyalist Volunteer Force and the Ulster Defence Association.
An inquest into Mr O'Hagan's death, held in 2006, found that he had been targeted for exposing the drug dealing activities of loyalist paramilitaries in Mid Ulster.
At the hearing his wife, Marie, said: "I became aware of a car slowing down. I saw a gun in one of the windows,
"Martin became aware of the car and pushed me towards the hedge. I fell into the hedge and heard a number of shots. Martin shouted 'Marie, get an ambulance'."
Police have reissued an appeal for information about the murder and want anyone who can help to contact the retrospective murder review unit.
(PR/JM)
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