LAST UPDATE | 3 Aug 2018

UK POLICE HAVE released a 77-year-old man from Co Antrim who was arrested yesterday in relation to the murder of exiled politician Gérard Hoarau in London in 1985.

Hoarau was an exiled opposition leader from Seychelles, a group of islands off the east coast of Africa. The organisation he spearheaded sought to overthrow the regime that came to power through a coup d’état in 1977.

The Met’s Counter Terrorism Command officers arrested the 77-year-old man in Antrim yesterday at around 9.50am on suspicion of conspiracy to murder.

He was detained under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act and was brought to a south London police station for questioning. The Met worked with PSNI officers to carry out the arrest, and officers are also searching another address in Antrim.

On 29 November 1985, Hoarau was shot a number of times with a Sterling sub-machine gun while he was on the doorstep of his home on Greencourt Avenue, Edgware.

Detectives previously arrested a number of individuals in connection with the investigation but no one was charged with murder.

Three people were convicted for perverting the course of justice in relation to the investigation in 1986.

A review of the investigation was initiated in 2016 from which fresh lines of enquiry were established, leading to this arrest. The 77-year-old man arrested has not been previously arrested as part of this investigation, the Met Police said.