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N. Ireland Slaying of Catholic Man Is Linked to Peace Plan

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<i> From Reuters</i>

A Roman Catholic man was killed in Northern Ireland early Saturday in what appeared to be a slaying by Protestant Loyalists opposed to the province’s peace process.

Police said they were pursuing the possibility that members of the terrorist Loyalist Volunteer Force killed 35-year-old Brian Service, who was shot several times at close range in a north Belfast street. He died later in a hospital.

Parties that draw their support from the Catholic community were quick to condemn the killing.

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Mitchel McLaughlin of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army, said it “could return us to the horrors of the past.”

Meanwhile, four Irish Republican Army members imprisoned in Ireland for arms offenses were released Saturday as part of the peace agreement, state broadcaster RTE said. The releases coincide with a failure by Northern Ireland’s parties to meet an Oct. 31 deadline for an agreement on all-Ireland governing bodies outlined in the April peace accord.

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