Dublin’s Special Criminal Court today heard how the only person to be charged in connection with the Omagh bombing, Mr Colm Murphy, was interviewed by gardaí for three days before being formally charged.
Mr Murphy, a 50-year-old father of four from Co Armagh with an address at Ravensdale, Co Louth, is accused of conspiring with another person to cause an explosion in Northern Ireland between August 13th and 16th, 1998.
On Saturday, August 15th, a 225kg car bomb exploded in Omagh killing 29 people.
The first session of the trial was taken up with legal argument between the defence and prosecution over whether any reference to the Omagh bombing could be made at the trial.
After hearing the lawyers' arguments, presiding Mr Justice Robert Barr ordered the trial to proceed immediately.
The prosecution case centres on a mobile telephone Mr Murphy allegedly loaned to another person directly involved in the bombing. Mr Peter Charlton SC for the prosecution said he would show Mr Murphy loaned his phone in the full knowledge that it would be used in planning and carrying out the attack.
Mr Charlton opened the prosecution’s case by outlining events leading up to the Omagh bombing and the similarities it shared with a bomb which went off in Banbridge, Co Down on August 1st, 1998 and to which he suggested Mr Murphy was linked.
"Having aided the Banbridge bombing he knowingly lent his aid to persons he knew were going to do a bombing run, in this case to Omagh. The accused, by lending his aid, became complicit in that act," he told the court.
Mr Charlton said the accused was not necessarily present at Omagh at the time of the explosion but that he aided in the setting off of the bomb without necessarily knowing where it was going to be.
Mr Charlton told the Court how gardaí searched Mr Murphy’s home on February 21st 1999, in Co Louth and seized an Eircell mobile phone account statement and two mobile phones. He was then brought in for questioning.
The Court was told how over the next three days Mr Murphy was interviewed for a total of almost 30 hours in 14 separate sessions by six different gardaí. Two 24-hour extensions to allow gardaí continue questioning the accused were granted.
Mr Murphy was released on the evening of the 23rd and immediately re-arrested and charged under Offences Against the State Act.
The first witness for the prosecution was Detective Sergeant Michael Campbell who presented the Court with two maps outlining the position of Eircell mobile phone masts in counties Louth, Cavan and Monaghan.
The second witness was Mr John Kevin Edgar, a mapping officer with the RUC, who presented the Court with two maps he had made of Omagh town centre over the six days following the explosion.
Shortly before the Court adjourned for the day defence counsel, Mr Michael O’Higgins SC, again raised the issue of evidence relating to Omagh.
He told Justice Barr until a link between the conspiracy to create a bomb and set it off and Omagh had been established there should be no reference made to it by the prosecution.
The trial continues on Monday.