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The GPO in Dublin Eleanor Keegan/Photocall Ireland
Belfast

Republican charged for 'encouraging terrorism' with Easter speech

He is due to appear before court this morning.

A PROMINENT REPUBLICAN has been charged over comments made in a speech on Easter Sunday.

The 33-year-old man was arrested in Northern Ireland yesterday and charged last night.

Detectives from the PSNI searched a property in north Belfast yesterday afternoon, and another in Lurgan, as part of the investigation.

A video of the comments, made in a speech in Lurgan on Easter Sunday, was published online but has since been removed. It sparked calls from unionists for the man to be arrested.

In the speech, the 33 year old said: “The use of arms prior to 1916 was legitimate.”

He continued to say that the use of arms before and after Easter 1916 was also “legitimate”:

In the existing political context of partition, illegal occupation and the denial of national self-determination, armed struggle, in 2015, remains a legitimate act of resistance.

He will appear in Craigavon Magistrates Court this morning.

“A dangerous lie”: Micheál Martin rubbishes Sinn Féin’s connection with 1916 >