TWO MEN HAVE been arrested in connection with the murder of a Catholic teenager in Belfast in 1973.

The suspects, both 57 years old, are being questioned about the fatal shooting of 19-year-old Eileen Doherty at the height of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

One of the men was arrested in Newtownards, Co Down, and another in south Belfast following the reopening of the case three months ago.

At the time of her killing,  Doherty’s death had been treated as a random act of sectarian violence by loyalist gunmen.

On the day she was attacked, Doherty had been visiting a friend in the city. She had called into a taxi depot on the Ormeau Road to bring her to her home in west Belfast, and while there she agreed to share a taxi with two men who said they were going to Finaghy.

The men, who were in their 20s and appeared to be drunk, sat in the back seat while Doherty sat in the front.

As the car was travelling along Annadale Embankment – shortly after the journey began – the men produced a gun, told the driver to stop the car and ordered both front-seat passengers into the back. Both the driver and Doherty managed to get out of the car and run – however they came to a dead end when they reached a wire fence near the River Lagan, which blocked their escape route. The men followed the pair in the car.

The taxi driver escaped but Doherty was caught and shot three times in the head and body by one of the men. Meanwhile, the taxi driver raised the alarm.

The teenager was rushed to hospital but died the following day.

When the case was reopened, the officer in charge of the investigation Detective Chief Inspector John McVea said:

I fully appreciate this murder took place a long time ago but… times have changed – secrets may have been shared.

In a book that chronicles each life lost during the Troubles, Lost Lives, a relative of Doherty’s speaking at her inquest says the victim was a person that “did not have a political thought in her head”.

The two suspects are being questioned at the PSNI’s serious crime suite in Antrim.