Northern Ireland charges man with soldiers' murder

An abandoned car is seen in Randalstown, about five miles from Massereene army base after two British soldiers were shot dead and four other people wounded in a shooting on Saturday, in Country Antrim, Northern Ireland March 8, 2009.

BALLYMENA, Northern Ireland (Reuters) - A Northern Irish court on Thursday remanded in custody a 44-year-old man charged with murdering two British soldiers at an army barracks in March after investigators presented DNA evidence against him.

Police had charged Brian Patrick Shivers with the killing of the two soldiers, the attempted murder of six other people outside the Massereene Barracks in Antrim on March 7 and with the possession of a gun and ammunition.

Shivers, who was arrested on Tuesday, is the second person to be charged with the killings, which were claimed by the Real IRA -- a dissident republican group which opposes the mainstream IRA's cease-fire and the decommissioning of its weapons.

Colin Duffy, from County Armagh, has already been charged with the murders and is in custody awaiting trial.

Detective Inspector Justin Galloway told the court on Thursday that two matches found inside what police believe was the getaway car used in the attack had provided a full DNA profile which matched the defendant's.

He also said a partial DNA profile had been found on a mobile phone inside the car and on a match outside the car.

Shivers' lawyer Niall Murphy disputed the DNA evidence and made lengthy submissions in favour of bail but the magistrate remanded him in custody until August 18.

Galloway said the attack was "quite clearly a well planned and orchestrated terrorist attack" and that "the defendant would re-offend if released."

SPORADIC VIOLENCE

Soldiers Mark Quinsey, 23, from Birmingham, and Patrick Azimkar, 21, from London, were shot dead at the army base hours before they were due to fly out to Afghanistan.

They had gone to the gates to take delivery of pizzas they had ordered as they waited for transport to take them to an airport for the flight to Kabul.

Two gunmen in a car parked nearby opened fire with semi-automatic rifles. Four other people were seriously injured, including the pizza delivery men.

One of the delivery men, a Polish national described by the Real IRA as "a collaborator," was seriously injured in the attack which was followed by the killing of a policeman by another splinter group, the Continuity IRA, two days later. Fighting between pro-British and Irish nationalist groups killed 3,600 people before a 1998 peace deal, which got a further boost last month when loyalist paramilitaries announced the scrapping of their arsenal and the end of armed struggle.

Sporadic violence still recurs however, and this month's Protestant Orange parades were marred by clashes as police tried to keep Catholic and Protestant groups apart.

(Writing by Andras Gergely and Padraic Halpin in Dublin; editing by Andrew Roche)