0
IRA suspect Paul Hughes was yesterday charged with last month's murder
of two Australian lawyers in Roermond, Holland. The victims were Stephen
Melrose and Nick Spanos, both 24, who were mistaken for off-duty British
servicemen when they were shot in the town's market square.
Hughes, 26, from Northern Ireland, was arrested in the early hours of
Tuesday morning near the Dutch border village of Chaam. It is believed
that he had gone there to pick up another IRA suspect, one of a gang of
three, who was on the run from police.
The three, two men and a woman, were discovered holding target
practice in a Belgian wood on Saturday. Both men at first evaded the
police and fled into Holland but were later arrested.
Hughes was spotted in Chaam and drove off after being asked to produce
his papers. He fled into a wood but was captured.
He was questioned by police in Roermond yesterday, before being taken
in front of a Judge and charged with the murder of the Australians and
membership of a criminal organisation.
A Dutch police spokesman said: ''Hughes has been remanded in custody
for six days, as our investigations continue. He is being held in a
secret place.''
Anti-terrorist experts from Scotland Yard yesterday attended a meeting
on the IRA with police and magistrates from Belgium, Holland, and West
Germany.
The aim of the summit in Turnhout, Belgium, was to co-ordinate the
gathering of evidence against all four IRA suspects being held in
Holland and Belgium.
The woman suspect, Donna Maguire, 23, faces extradition proceedings to
answer charges in West Germany about earlier IRA attacks against British
military targets there. She will appear in court today when the
prosecution will request she is remanded in custody for a further 30
days.
The two men who were in the Belgian wood are being held in Holland,
and face extradition to Belgium.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article