Derry man Andrew Allen was shot dead by RAAD in Co Donegal in February 2012
GARDAI have arrested a man in his 30s in Burnfoot, Co Donegal, today over the dissident republican murder of Derry man Andrew Allen.
The father-of-two was killed in his home in Buncrana in February 2012.
The suspect was detained under Section 30 of the Republic’s Offences Against the State Act.
He has been taken to Buncrana Garda station for questioning.
Dissident republican vigilante group Republican Action Against Drugs (RAAD) admitted responsibility for the murder.
Mr Allen’s family have always denied claims he was a drug dealer.
Mr Allen, 24, from the “Top of the Hill” in the Waterside area, was shot at a house in Links View Park, Lisfannon.
The father of two was one of several men forced out of the city by a republican vigilante group in 2011.
Three men went up to the house and fired a number of shots through a bedroom window.
They had failed to gain entry through the front door.
Gardai said that one of their lines of inquiry is that republican vigilantes were responsible for the murder.
However, they said they could not ascribe the killing to any particular organisation.
At the time, Superintendent Kevin English expressed his sympathies to Mr Allen’s family and said the shooting had been a “traumatic event for the wider community of Buncrana”.
Mr Allen had been living at the house for about six months.
His partner was in the property when the shooting happened at 9.20 pm but was not injured.
A car was found burnt out a short distance away at Fahan shortly after the attack.
Gardai appealed for information about anyone who was in the Links View Park area prior to the shooting.
They also appealed for information about the silver Vauxhall Cavalier car with a Northern Ireland registration SJI 2117 which was found burnt out at Fahan.
Gardai said the gunmen had switched to another vehicle to make their getaway.
Padraig McLaughlin of Sinn Fein said at the time that he believed the man had been targeted by the group, Republican Action Against Drugs.
“It is a shocking murder. We give our allegiance in Donegal and Derry to the PSNI and gardai to control crime. That is one of the blessings of the peace process,” he said.
“This is not republican, this is anti-republican. He has been murdered by a tiny group of arrogant thugs who call themselves republican.”
The murder later featured on the RTE Crime Call programme in a bid to catch Mr Allen’s killers.
One man in his 40s was arrested several days after the murder in 2012 but was later released without charge.
Tags: