Republican terror alliance issues statement linking Black's murder to conditions inside Maghaberry prison
A republican terror alliance styling itself as a new IRA has claimed it murdered Northern Ireland prison officer David Black.
The group issued a statement to the Belfast paper the Irish News on Monday linking the killing to conditions inside the top-security Maghaberry prison.
The faction comprises members of the Real IRA, independent dissident republican units in areas such as East Tyrone and the Derry-based Republican Action Against Drugs.
In a statement to the Guardian during the summer the grouping of paramilitary organisations said it was uniting to form a new IRA.
Black, 52, died after his car was riddled with bullets during an ambush along the M1 motorway near Portadown on 1 November. He had been driving to work at Maghaberry prison.
During his funeral last week, near his home in Cookstown, County Tyrone, a Presbyterian minister said the prison officer had been a "man of peace".
At the time of the murder republican sources indicated that the new IRA was responsible for the fatal shooting.