The acquittal of Colm Murphy on charges of conspiracy in connection with the Omagh bombing brings to an end a number of unsuccessful attempts to mount prosecutions regarding the atrocity.
The three-judge Special Criminal Court, presided over by Mr Justice Butler, ruled there was no evidence upon which the court could have convicted Murphy after it found that all the evidence of 15 Garda interviews with Murphy following his arrest in February 1999 was inadmissible.
The court ruled that the falsification of Garda interview notes which emerged at the original trial in 2002 had “tainted” all the Garda interviews, and Murphy must be given the benefit of the doubt.
Murphy said yesterday after being acquitted: “I am glad to see it’s all over. Find out who was behind it – MI5 agents setting people up.”
No one has been convicted of the murder of the 29 people who died in Omagh on August 15th, 1998, or held to account for the injuries suffered by more than 200 people in the bombing, which was admitted by the Real IRA.
Relatives of the bomb victims yesterday expressed their frustration that there have been no sustainable criminal convictions over the bombing.
Michael Gallagher, whose son Aidan was killed in the bombing, again called for a cross-Border inquiry. “The relatives feel it is now time for the two governments to co-operate and pursue this inquiry,” he said. “It would seem that on both sides of the Border the criminal justice systems are not able to hold people to account,” he added.
In 2004, Liam Campbell was jailed for membership of the Real IRA, and Michael McKevitt is serving a 20-year sentence for IRA membership and directing terrorism – an offence introduced in legislation passed in the aftermath of the bombing – but not for an act directly related to the bombing.
The only person charged in the North in connection with the bombing, Seán Hoey, was acquitted in December 2007, with a stinging rebuke from the presiding judge to two police officers involved in the investigation. Last year, however, in a civil trial for damages, 12 relatives of those who died won £1.6 million in damages against Colm Murphy, Michael McKevitt, Liam Campbell and Séamus Daly.
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said: “While getting a successful prosecution at this stage will be very difficult, I would urge the security services on both sides of the Border to continue to co-operate on this case.” The Labour Party’s spokesman on justice, Pat Rabbitte, described the outcome as a “bitter disappointment” to those who were injured or who lost relatives in the bombing.
“The criticisms of the conduct of a number of gardaí by the judges at the original trial in the Special Criminal Court in 2002 were among the most serious ever to have been levelled against members of the force,” he added.