SENIOR PSNI officers have ordered intensive house-to-house inquiries in Omagh, particularly in the Highfield area of the town, to try to determine who planted the under-car bomb that killed 25-year-old Constable Ronan Kerr on Saturday afternoon.
The PSNI senior investigating officer, Det Supt Raymond Murray, said in Omagh yesterday that police were also trawling through all available CCTV footage of the Highfield estate area – where Constable Kerr lived and where he was attacked – to try to find information that could pinpoint his killers.
At the time of writing no organisation had admitted the murder, although security sources believe that due to the sophistication of the improvised explosive device that the Real IRA/Óglaigh na hÉireann combination of dissident republican paramilitaries was responsible.
Constable Kerr died after the bomb exploded at about 3.45pm on Saturday outside his home. Police are trying to identify everyone who entered the estate in the 48 hours before the explosion, said Det Supt Murray. The officer also headed the reopened investigation into the killings of Lesley Howell and Trevor Buchanan that resulted in the murder convictions of Colin Howell and Hazel Stewart.
Det Supt Murray said Constable Kerr returned to his home from duty at about 1am on Friday. “The window I am interested in is probably from teatime on Thursday to the time of detonation on Saturday, and that would include the window when the bomb planters had come into the estate to plant the device but it would also include some possible build-up activity on Thursday,” he said.
Appealing for public assistance, he said every piece of information could be crucial in tracking down the suspected dissident bomb team. “We need a minute-by-minute picture of what happened in Highfield in the timeframe that I outlined. I think the answer to the question of who planted that bomb lies within that detail,” he added.
Det Supt Murray said the bomb was probably housed in a thick grey plastic box about the size of a lunch box that would hold sandwiches. It probably had a timer used to protect the bombers from a premature explosion and may have contained up to half a kilogram of high explosive.
The most common means of exploding such bombs was by a tilt switch mechanism, he said.
He appeared to dismiss any possibility of dissident republicans somehow hacking into the PSNI electronic system to establish Constable Kerr’s address. “I think that is highly speculative, we have not seen any evidence of that whatsoever. Police officers have been targeted for 40 years and it does not require that to carry this out,” he said. Det Supt Murray also appeared to dismiss reports there was information about a specific dissident threat against Constable Kerr. He said all officers were aware of the general “severe” level of threat from dissidents.
Det Supt Murray said police would have to await forensic examination before possibly being in a position to say what type of high explosive was used in the attack.
The London-based solicitor Jason McCue – who is representing victims of IRA violence who were injured or bereaved as a result of Semtex explosive supplied to the IRA by Col Muammar Gadafy from the 1980s – said that Semtex might have been used in the attack. “I would not be surprised if Omagh was Libyan Semtex,” said Mr McCue, who is in Benghazi in Libya at the invitation of the rebel national council leading the uprising against Col Gadafy. Dissident republicans have used small amounts of Semtex in some of their attacks.
