LONDON – Police in Northern Ireland arrested two more men Wednesday over the murder of Lyra McKee, a journalist shot dead while covering a riot in Londonderry in 2019.
The Police Service Northern Ireland (PSNI) said the men, aged 24 and 29, were arrested in the city earlier and have been detained under the Terrorism Act.
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Three men have already been charged with McKee’s murder on April 18, 2019, two of them last Friday. A further two men have been charged with rioting and additional offenses.
McKee, 29, was killed while standing near a police officer while observing an anti-police riot in the city, also known as Derry, when she was hit by a bullet by a masked gunman.
The self-claimed New IRA group, a small paramilitary group that opposes Northern Ireland’s peace process, has claimed responsibility for the attack, saying its members shot the journalist by accident while firing at police.
McKee was an increasingly influential journalist who had written powerfully about social issues in Northern Ireland. Her death helped spur a successful effort to get feuding politicians to revive Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government, which had collapsed in 2017.
Both men charged last week for McKee’s murder were granted bail and have been ordered to return to court on Oct. 7. The two men, Gearoid Cavanaugh, 33, and Jordan Devine, 21, were also charged with possession of a firearm and ammunition with intent to endanger life. A prosecuting lawyer said the police case was that the two men were with the gunman who fired the shot that killed McKee.