by JOHN GILL
Armed police remain on high alert on both sides of the Derry-Inishowen border as the hunt for murder suspect Kieran McLaughlin continues.
The house at the centre of last night’s “stand off.”
Responding to a reported sighting of McLaughlin at Whitehouse shopping complex on the Buncrana Road just outside city at around 11.50am this morning, armed police officers emerged from two vehicles and ordered a man out of a car and to keep his hands visible. However, it was quickly established that it was a case of “mistaken identity.”
McLaughlin, from the Galliagh area of Derry, was named by the PSNI as the chief suspect in the killing of Barry McCrory in a flat in Shipquay Street in the city on Thursday.
The 35-year-old was shot after a lone gunman gained entry to the apartment he shared with his partner. After forcing the woman into another room, the gunman turned and shot the father-of-one. He mingled with shoppers as he made his geteaway on foot.
Police carried out extensive searches at homes – including those belonging to the suspect’s family – in the Galliagh area on Thursday before they took the unusual step of releasing a photograph and naming McLaughlin as the man they wanted to speak to in relation to the murder.
The Whitehouse incident came after members of the Garda armed response unit surrounded a house in the Brae Road area, about five mile from the village of Burnfoot, at 5.30pm yesterday in the belief they had “cornered” the 58-year-old.
However, after a “stand off” which lasted almost 11 hours the operation was “officially” stood down. Although Gardai confirmed nothing was found and no one was arrested, armed Gardai remained at the scene until noon today when a number of families who had been evacuated from their homes were allowed to return
No one was present at the house at the centre of the “stand off” this afternoon. Although curtains in the property were open, interior lighting was switched while venetian blinds at the end of the house were closed.
There was no sign of a forced entry at the house which is situated on a hillside about 50 yards off Burnfoot to Muff road.
The only evidence of a police presence was flattened grass where armed police lay throughout the “siege” and an empty one litre water bottle.
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