A Northern Ireland prison officer has been assassinated subsequent to shots being fired at his vehicle, which then collapsed on the M1 in Northern Ireland.
The shooting occurred on the thoroughfare, which was Belfast bound, between the M12 Portadown exit and the Lurgan interchange in the morning on Thursday. The thoroughfare has now been shut down in both directions.
The Northern Ireland prison officer’s shooting has been received with condemnation from the local politicians, with the territory’s First and Deputy First Ministers, Peter Robinson and Martin McGuiness, denouncing the murder of the prison officer as unjustifiable.
They have voiced that the prison officers perform a noteworthy role for Northern Ireland by functioning for the Prison Service. Any assault on prison officers is an assault on the hearts of all Northern Irish people.
The Northern Ireland prison officer’s murder has revived the memory in the region of the sectarian violence that crippled Northern Ireland from the 1960s to the 1990s.
Robinson and McGuiness jointly asserted that the perpetrators of the murder of the Northern Ireland prison officer have nothing constructive to present to society. Their violent mindset will not thwart the Northern Irish administration from pursuing a brighter and enhanced path for the region.
Northern Ireland Secretary, Theresa Villiers, has taken the murderers to task calling them evil and characterised by cowardice. The Secretary voiced that her profoundest empathy and thoughts were with the kith and kin of the murdered Northern Ireland prison officer. Villiers deemed that the prison officer had been devoted to serving the entire Northern Ireland community, which was commendable.
East Belfast MP, Naomi Long, has elucidated that the Northern Irish residents want this unsettling violence to end in their region.
The latest murder of a prison officer is the thirtieth one in Northern Ireland since 1974, with the last murder occurring in September 1993 of prison officer Jim Peacock, who was killed by loyalist gunmen of Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).
Meanwhile, police are investigating the link between the murder and a charred vehicle found in Lurgan, County Armagh.
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I have only sadness in my mind when I think about the violence that rocked Northern Ireland in the 60s, 70s, 80s and early 90s….violence between the Catholics and the Protestants….
peace cannot be conquered by violence in Northern Ireland….
Very sad.