Man arrested over 1982 IRA bombing that killed 3 police officers in Northern Ireland

LONDON (AP) — A 61-year-old man appeared in a Dublin court Thursday after being arrested in connection with an Irish Republican Army bombing that killed three Northern Ireland policemen in 1982.

Martin John McCauley was arrested Wednesday on an extradition warrant related to the murders of Royal Ulster Constabulary Sgt. Sean Quinn and constables Allan McCloy and Paul Hamilton, police said.

Plans to charge McCauley with murder would mark a rare prosecution at this time over the violence known as “the Troubles” that reigned for three decades in a conflict involving Irish republican and British loyalist militants and U.K. security forces that left 3,600 people dead, some 50,000 wounded and thousands bereaved.

A law passed by the British government last year, the Legacy and Reconciliation Bill, would have given immunity from prosecution for most offenses by militant groups and British soldiers after May 1. But a Belfast judge ruled in February that the bill does not comply with human rights law. The government is appealing the ruling.

The Public Prosecution Service said the decision to press charges in the three murders was made in April before the law went into effect.

The three officers were killed Oct. 27, 1982 when a bomb was remotely detonated from a van overlooking a road in Kinnego Embankment in County Armagh, Det. Sgt. Adrian Murray said in Dublin’s High Court.

McCauley’s role in the bombing hasn’t been determined but there is forensic evidence tying him to the carefully planned attack, carried out by two members of the IRA, Murray said.

A judge ordered McCauley held until a a hearing Wednesday in the Criminal Courts of Justice.