A man from South Armagh was being questioned today by police about the murder of military intelligence officer Captain Robert Nairac in Northern Ireland more than 30 years ago.

The suspect, aged 57, was detained by officers from the Police Service of Northern Ireland serious crime branch and taken for questioning in Antrim.

Capt Nairac, a member of the Grenadier Guards, was abducted by the Provisional IRA, taken across the border into the Irish Republic and shot.

His body has never been recovered.

Six people were convicted for their part in Nairac’s murder, who was abducted on May 14 1977, when he visited a pub at Drumintee, South Armagh.

Five of those convicted were from Northern Ireland and one from the Republic.

Nairac aroused suspicion in the Three Steps pub after telling a woman he was a member of the Official IRA and asking about the best way to cross the border without being detected by the security forces.

Witnesses said that he sang a “rebel” song with the band playing that night. He was abducted in a struggle in the pub’s car park and driven across the border to Ravensdale, Co Louth.

After a brutal hour-long interrogations, during which he gave no useful information to his abductors, Nairac was shot dead.

In November 1977 Liam Townson, 24, was found guilty of his murder in Dublin’s Special Criminal Court and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was released in 1990.

In 1978 two men were found guilty of his murder and a third was convicted of manslaughter in Northern Ireland.

Three other men remain on the run. One of them took part in a BBC Northern Ireland television documentary last year, to mark the 30th anniversary of the murder.

The man, Terry McCormick, said that contrary to reports Nairac’s body had not been put through a meat grinder and fed to pigs. His body is thought to lie in an unmarked grave somewhere on the Irish border.

Times Recommends

• Charles blazes trail as sun king
• Thalidomiders win payout 50 years on
• Libel gag on talk of 'medical hurricane'