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Flowers commemorate the death of Lyra McKee at the crime scene
Photo: Paul FAITH / AFP
The journalist Lyra McKee died two and a half years ago in a riot in Londonderry, Northern Ireland.
One man has already been charged with murder, and the police have now arrested four other suspects.
The men, aged 19 to 33, were taken into custody on Wednesday morning in the Londonderry / Derry area.
Now they are to be questioned in a police station in Belfast, said the Northern Irish police.
The 29-year-old McKee was shot dead in a riot in the Northern Irish city of Londonderry in April 2019.
The trigger for the riots is said to have been the annual protest at Easter in the context of the Northern Ireland conflict.
In the course of the Brexit negotiations, concerns had grown that the possible introduction of border controls between British Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which will continue to be part of the EU, could lead to more violence again.
New IRA has admitted to the case
The militant Catholic-nationalist group "New IRA" admitted to the crime at the time, but emphasized that it was a "tragic oversight".
The journalist's violent death brought back memories of the darkest times of the Northern Ireland conflict.
Back then, a civil war had raged for decades, killing thousands and injuring tens of thousands.
In the conflict, Catholic nationalists who want to unite with Ireland faced Protestant unionists who want to remain part of Great Britain.
McKee had written many times about the Northern Ireland conflict and its aftermath.
svs / dpa / Reuters
