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The 19, 20, 21 and 33-year-old men were arrested early Wednesday in Londonderry, north-west Northern Ireland, where L. McKee was killed in April 2019.
The individuals were taken to a police station in Belfast where they would be questioned, the Northern Ireland Police Service said.
“These arrests are the culmination of a detailed two-year investigation into Lyra’s murder and the events that occurred against her,” said Lead Inspector Detective Jason Murphy.
McKee, 29, who focused on Northern Ireland’s complex history, was shot in the head while reporting on riots and police clashes in Londonderry, the UK’s second-largest city in the province.
The New IRA, a dissident Republican group that is furiously opposed to the Northern Ireland peace process, claimed responsibility for McKee’s assassination but apologized and said it had targeted “enemy” police.
The journalist’s murder was reminiscent of three decades of violence in the province and has been condemned by all political groups, including the neighboring Republic of Ireland.
McKee wrote primarily about the so-called ceasefire children, a generation that grew up after the signing of the Good Friday Peace Treaty in 1998, which ended three decades of bloody conflict between Catholic and Protestant communities that claimed more than 3,500 lives. This period is called “Trouble”.
His death sparked widespread outrage across Northern Ireland and revived efforts to dispel disagreements between the main parties representing the British youth and Irish nationalist communities. UK-owned Northern Ireland has not had a semi-autonomous government since January 2017, when trust between the major parties collapsed.
Several people have previously been arrested in the case of the murder of a journalist.
In February, Paul McIntyre, 52, was charged with murder.
Police also confirmed that a gun was found that shot L. McKee during a search in Londonderry.
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