Police attacked as republican held

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Former IRA prisoner Colin Duffy, 41, has broken away from mainstream republicans and criticised Sinn Fein's decision to back the new Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).

Following his arrest, gangs took to the streets near his home in Lurgan, Co Armagh, and police were pelted with stones before petrol bombs were hurled at PSNI vehicles.

Duffy was one of three men arrested by police probing the murders of Patrick Azimkar, 21, and Mark Quinsey, 23, who were gunned down by the dissident republican Real IRA as they collected pizzas at the gates of Massereene Barracks in Antrim last Saturday night.

A tense stand-off developed in Lurgan, with youths forming makeshift barricades to block the railway lines in the town.

Duffy and two other men, aged 21 and 32, were arrested in police raids in Lurgan and Bellaghy, Co Londonderry. All three were being questioned at Antrim police station.

Duffy came to prominence in the 1990s after he was acquitted of the murder of a soldier when it emerged that a key witness against him was a loyalist paramilitary. He was later arrested over the subsequent murder of two police constables, but the case collapsed.

His solicitor, Rosemary Nelson, received threats after representing him in court and she was murdered in a loyalist car bomb attack at her Lurgan home in 1999. Her death is now the subject of a high-profile public inquiry.

The two soldiers were killed in the Real IRA ambush at their barracks hours before they were to fly to Afghanistan. Two other soldiers and two pizza delivery men were wounded in the attack.

Police are also questioning three people over the murder of Police Constable Stephen Carroll, 48, who was killed by gunmen from the Continuity IRA in an attack launched in Craigavon, Co Armagh, on Monday night.