Ireland arrests man over ‘death threats to MP’

Irish police said Saturday they had arrested a man on suspicion of making threats, with national media reporting he was suspected of threatening to kill a British MP.

The arrest came after Conservative MP David Amess was stabbed to death last month, prompting concerns over the level of threat faced by politicians and calls for better security.

The Garda, Ireland’s police service, said in a statement that they arrested a 41-year-old man in Cork in southwestern Ireland on Saturday morning “on suspicion of making threats against a person from outside this jurisdiction”.

Irish police said officers seized a number of electronic devices while searching the residential property.

RTE national broadcaster reported that “it is understood that the person targeted by the alleged threat is a Westminster MP”.

The Irish Times reported that the investigation concerned “threats to kill a female Labour MP”.

It said it understood that the MP had alerted police after she received a phone call on October 18 in which a person threatened to kill her. This was three days after the murder of Amess.

The Irish Times reported that the man, a British national, was arrested at a rented apartment early Saturday morning and taken to Dublin for questioning.

A 25-year-old man accused of murdering Amess in the southeastern English resort of Leigh-on-Sea will go on trial next year.

The Crown Prosecution Service has said the murder has a “terrorist connection” with “religious and ideological motivations”.

British police on October 27 arrested a man after senior Labour politician Angela Rayner received a string of threatening and abusive phone calls.