Woman Arrested in Northern Ireland Over Bomb Threat to Irish Foreign Minister

Tensions have risen among the Northern Irish loyalist community over the past year over the application of the Northern Ireland Protocol of the UK's withdrawal agreement with the European Union. Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney has been a strident critic of Britain's attempts to negotiate changes to the deal.

A woman has been arrested in Northern Ireland over an armed hijacking and hoax bomb threat against Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said on Sunday that they had arrested a 38-year-old woman in connection with the incident.

A suspected firearm, two vehicles, a quantity of controlled drugs, and a large sum of cash were also seized in searches, which were ongoing in the Ballysillan and Springmartin districts of Belfast.

Coveney was bundled off stage on Friday, five minutes into his speech to the John and Pat Hume Foundation, a peace-building organisation founded by the former Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) leader and his wife, after authorities received a bomb threat against the building.

Two gunmen hijacked a van and forced the driver to take them to an address where they planted a dummy explosive device in the vehicle. They then drove the van to the venue, where bomb disposal experts later carried out a controlled explosion.

The PSNI said the threat was a hoax, which they believed was staged by loyalist paramilitaries form the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).

Assistant Chief Constable Mark McEwan told journalists that the gunmen told the van driver they were holding his family hostage and that the van was carrying a real bomb.

"Just think about this, the victim believed at this point he was driving a van containing a live bomb and that his family were being threatened", McEwan said.

Tensions have risen in the six counties over the past year over the application of the Northern Ireland Protocol of the UK's withdrawal agreement with the European Union. This has seen imports of chilled meats and potted plants from mainland Britain — but not from the Republic of Ireland — blocked, along with customs checks on other goods arriving from within the UK.

Coveney has attacked Downing Street's attempts to negotiate changes to the protocols with Brussels.