A man was remanded in custody by a Northern Ireland court on Monday after being accused of possession of files that could be used for terrorist purposes as part of an investigation into an accidental disclosure of personal data by police officers.
• Also read: Police data leak in Northern Ireland has officials worried
Christopher Paul O’Kane was arrested at his home on Friday, where officers discovered the files he had received after they were accidentally posted online in early August while police were responding to a routine request under the Privacy Act. Freedom of Information in the UK.
According to the provincial police, the documents in question contained the names of about 10,000 police officers, their rank, job duties and the unit in which they work.
The leak has sparked major concern among Northern Ireland police following the alleged assassination attempt on police officer John Caldwell by the dissident republican group New IRA last March in the British countryside.
According to Police Commissioner Simon Byrne, dissident Republican activists hostile to the province’s membership in the UK had access to these documents, which they could use to intimidate or attack police officers.
Some documents were therefore posted on a wall near an office of Sinn Féin, now the premier political force in Northern Ireland and a former political arm of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) paramilitary group.
Shortly after the leak, police also said they were investigating the theft of documents, including a list of more than 200 police officers.
During Monday’s hearing, an investigator indicated that Christopher Paul O’Kane had those files on a phone, was found at his home, and was seized with a second device that contained images of detonators.
Certain elements of these files were highlighted and, according to the investigator, the accused had registered on a website that made it possible to find out a person’s address from his name.
The man was remanded in custody for four weeks after his appearance at Coleraine Magistrates’ Court in Ballymena, North Belfast.
Another man was arrested last week in connection with the case and has been released on parole pending investigation.