By Brendan Anderson

A prominent Sinn Fein Assembly member has been arrested by police investigating a botched IRA bombing which claimed nine lives at the height of the Irish Troubles.

Veteran Derry Republican Francie Brolly and freelance sports journalist Seamus Mullan are believed to be among four people being questioned by police carrying out inquiries into “historic crimes.”

The nine bomb victims, three of them children, were killed when three car bombs exploded in the village of Claudy, Co. Derry, in 1972.

It later transpired that the bombing team sped from the village intending to give warnings but found that the nearest two public telephones were out of order. By the time a working phone was found, the bombs had exploded, ripping the heart out of the village and killing the nine residents.

Brolly, an active GAA member and retired teacher from Dungiven, was arrested Tuesday morning. He has represented East Derry since the 2003 Assembly elections. His wife, Anne, is a former Sinn Fein mayor of Limavady.

The Brollys are popular singers of Irish traditional music who have performed throughout Ireland and have recorded several albums. Brolly, a former internee, wrote the “H-Block Song” in support of the Republican blanket-protest prisoners in Long Kesh. The song became extremely popular in Ireland and in Irish communities across the world.

Broadcast journalist Seamus Mullan reports on Gaelic games for several media outlets.

Police would only say that two men, aged 60 and 67, were arrested in Dungiven and a 50-year-old man was detained in Portglenone, Co. Antrim. A woman was also arrested in Dungannon, Co. Tyrone. It is understood all are being questioned at a police barracks in Antrim town.

On Tuesday afternoon, at a protest outside Dungiven police station, Republicans demanded Brolly’s release.

Sinn Fein MP Martin McGuinness said his party would raise the arrests with the Irish and British governments. He described Brolly’s detention as “one of the most blatant examples of political policing seen here in recent times.”

“As has become the norm with this type of political policing, selected media outlets were briefed about the identities of those arrested. Francie Brolly is an elected representative and a key participant in the peace process. His arrest is completely motivated by an anti-peace process and anti-Sinn Fein agenda operating at the heart of the (police) Special Branch,” McGuinness said.

The Claudy bombing has been the subject of much media speculation over the years and even involved the then leader of Ireland’s Catholics, Cardinal William Conway. A police statement in December 2002 appeared to confirm that a priest was involved in the bungled operation. A fresh investigation was launched the same year.

It was claimed that the alleged activities of the priest were the subject of a discussion by Cardinal Conway and the Northern secretary at the time, William Whitelaw. The mystery deepened with the appearance of a letter written by a “Father Liam” claiming that Father James Chesney was the priest involved in the bombing.

Chesney did serve in the area and moved to a parish in Donegal around the same time. He died eight years later in 1980.

Democratic Unionist Party Assembly Member Ian Paisley Junior said that anyone found guilty of the Claudy bombing should not be included in any amnesty for outstanding historic terrorist crimes.

“The innocent victims caught up this indiscriminate and atrocious massacre have waited over three decades to see the murder of their loved ones resolved. The DUP has long said that the 1,800 unsolved murders in Northern Ireland must be resolved to the satisfaction of the innocent victims,” he said.

“I hope that today’s actions by the police leads to convictions, however, the government must now remove from any person who could be convicted of this heinous crime an amnesty that would not see them serve a single day in jail for their part in mass murder.”