Prominent dissident republican charged with attack on police

Colin Duffy, one of the most prominent dissident republicans in Northern Ireland, was charged Tuesday with a shooting attack on a police convoy in Belfast. Two other men, Alex McCrory and Henry Fitzsimons, were also charged at a hearing in Laganside Magistrate's Court in Belfast, the Belfast Telegraph reported. Duffy was charged with conspiracy to murder and the others with attempted murder, among other charges. The police convoy was on Crumlin Road in North Belfast on Dec. 5 when shots were fired from the Ardoyne, a Catholic neighborhood and republican stronghold, without causing any injury. The Crumlin Road was often a battleground during the Troubles because it runs through a number of sectarian neighborhoods. A magistrate ordered Duffy and the others jailed pending another hearing next month and said the defendants would appear by videolink. Two supporters of the trio were arrested during clashes with police outside the courthouse Tuesday. Duffy, 46, of Lurgan in County Armagh joined the Irish Republican Army as a teenager. He survived a shooting by the Ulster Volunteer Force in 1990 that killed one of his comrades and was charged but never convicted of killing British soldiers later in the decade. Last year, Duffy was acquitted of killing two soldiers outside a barracks in County Antrim. The 2009 Massereene Barracks shooting was the first in more than a decade where soldiers were killed in Northern Ireland.