A man acquitted of a conspiracy charge connected with the Omagh bombing is to launch a new legal challenge to his retrial on the charge.
The High Court last month cleared the way for Colm Murphy's retrial after it refused an application to halt the trial.
But yesterday Mr Murphy's solicitor, Michael Finucane, told the Special Criminal Court he had received instructions from his client to appeal that ruling to the Supreme Court. Mr Finucane said that it could be towards the end of next year before the Supreme Court appeal is heard. The Special Criminal Court adjourned the case for mention on a later date, and Mr Murphy remains free on bail.
Mr Murphy (53), a building contractor and publican who is a native of Co Armagh but with an address at Jordan's Corner, Ravensdale, Co Louth, was freed on bail in 2005 after the Court of Criminal Appeal quashed his conviction for conspiracy offences connected with the Real IRA bombing, which killed 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins, and injured more than 300 people, in August 1998.
Mr Murphy was jailed for 14 years by the Special Criminal Court in January 2002 for his alleged role in the Omagh bomb. He was the first person to be convicted in either the Republic or Northern Ireland in connection with the bombing.
But in January 2005 the Court of Criminal Appeal overturned the conviction and ordered a retrial after finding that the court of trial had failed to give proper regard to altered garda interview notes and that there had been "an invasion of the presumption of innocence" in the judgment on Mr Murphy.
During a 25-day trial in 2001 and 2002, Mr Murphy had pleaded not guilty to conspiring in Dundalk with another person not before the court to cause an explosion in the State or elsewhere between August 13th and 16th, 1998.
In a reserved judgment last month Mr Justice Iarfhlaith O'Neill refused Mr Murphy's application to halt the retrial. While there had been delay in the case, the judge said he was satisfied this had not breached Mr Murphy's rights, either under the Constitution or European Convention on Human Rights.
While there was delay in bringing the proceedings on behalf of the DPP or the State against Mr Murphy, the prosecution was a difficult one and a considerable volume of material had to be prepared and furnished to the applicant, the judge said.