{"id":27573,"date":"2012-11-01T14:43:27","date_gmt":"2012-11-01T12:43:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/?p=27573"},"modified":"2012-11-01T14:49:37","modified_gmt":"2012-11-01T12:49:37","slug":"northern-ireland-shooting-prison-officer-shot-dead-by-ira-uk-news-27573","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/northern-ireland-shooting-prison-officer-shot-dead-by-ira-uk-news-27573\/","title":{"rendered":"Northern Ireland Shooting: Prison Officer Shot Dead by IRA \/ UK News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A prison officer has been shot dead when he was ambushed on a motorway on his way to work in Northern Ireland.<\/h1>\n

The officer, from the high security Maghaberry Prison near Lisburn, was ambushed on a stretch of the M1 between Portadown and Lurgan, County Armagh.<\/p>\n

One unconfirmed report claimed a gunman opened up when another car pulled up alongside.<\/p>\n

It is understood the officer’s car careered off the road when he was fired on and he died later.<\/p>\n

Paul Girvan, a Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, said the man was on his way to begin duty at the top-security in County Antrim, where dissident republicans have been involved in long-running protests against jail conditions.<\/p>\n

Jeffrey Donaldson, MP for Lagan Valley, said: “This is a terrible tragedy. Once again, a small minority are trying to drag us back to the dark days.”<\/p>\n

A car suspected of being linked to the attack was later found burnt-out at Lurgan, where dissident republicans have considerable support.<\/p>\n

The shooting happened at around 7.30am, at the same time as a major security alert further along the motorway at a shopping centre at Sprucefield, near Lisburn, where bomb disposal experts were called in to check a car.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It is believed this vehicle might have been linked in some way to the shooting, according to some sources.<\/p>\n

Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers condemned the murder, describing it as “cowardly and evil attack”.<\/p>\n

She said: “The thoughts and deepest sympathy of us all are with the family, friends and colleagues of the murdered prison officer.<\/p>\n

“Like his colleagues across the prison service he was dedicated to serving the whole community in Northern Ireland . This is in stark contrast to the people responsible for this despicable crime.<\/p>\n

“The British and Irish Governments, the Executive, the PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland) and Garda – and above all the people of Northern Ireland – will continue to work together to ensure that those who pursue their aims by violence will not succeed.”<\/p>\n

Only a day ago, Ms Villiers warned that the threat from dissident republicans in Northern Ireland remained severe.<\/p>\n

Steve Gillan, general secretary of Prison officers Association, added: “I condemn the outrageous murder of a professional prison officer. My thoughts are with his family and friends.”<\/p>\n

Sinn Fein Assembly member John O’Dowd said the shooting was “totally wrong”.<\/p>\n

“There is no justification for continued conflict in this society,” he said.<\/p>\n

Mr O’Dowd insisted the extremists would not be allowed to take the region backwards.<\/p>\n

“We, as a society, have decided we want to move beyond them. The road they are on is not going to achieve anything.”<\/p>\n

The man is the 30th prison officer killed in Northern Ireland since 1974.<\/p>\n

The dissident protests in Maghaberry have taken place at a time when the NI Prison Service is undergoing a turbulent programme of reform.<\/p>\n

The shooting represents a major blow for recently-appointed director general Sue McAllister, 51, from South Yorkshire, who took over the reins of the organisation earlier this summer.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A prison officer has been shot dead when he was ambushed on a motorway on his way to work in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":702,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,63,17,1,118,14],"tags":[37171,37178,37163,37167,37165,37173,37175,37174,37172,37170,37176,37161,28020,37168,37162,37177,7831,37166,37169,37160],"class_list":["post-27573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-daily","category-europe","category-general","category-hot","category-world","tag-a-prison-officer-shoot-dead","tag-british-irish-ira","tag-ira","tag-ira-shoot-prison-officer","tag-ira-uk","tag-lisburn-northern-ireland","tag-lurgan-uk","tag-m1-motorway-shoot","tag-maghaberry-prison","tag-northern-ireland-motorway","tag-northern-ireland-secretary-theresa-villiers","tag-northern-ireland-shoot","tag-northern-ireland-uk","tag-prison-officer-shoot-motorway","tag-prison-officer-shoot-northern-ireland","tag-sinn-fein-ira","tag-uk","tag-uk-ira","tag-uk-motorway","tag-uk-northern-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/702"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27573\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}