‘WE’LL BANKRUPT OMAGH SUSPECTS’
Victims’ families vow to take assets of men found liable for atrocity
THE Omagh bomb victims’ families are pushing to have the four men found liable for the 1998 atrocity declared bankrupt after they failed to pay €1.8million in compensation. Families want the four men declared bankrupt so their alleged assets – including a pub, salon and farmland – can be taken off them and sold to raise the money owed.
Lawyers for the victims’ relatives will appear before the High Court here in the next week to mount the challenge.
The money owed to victims’ relatives has been unpaid for nearly ten years. If successful in their court bid, the families could receive huge sums of money from
the sale of a range of properties which also include several houses and a construction company allegedly owned by the men.
The families would also look to take over several bank accounts.
A legal source said that the total wealth of the four men – Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt, Liam Campbell, Colm Murphy and Séamus Daly, who all have racked up terror-related convictions – will be more than enough to cover the compensation bill, if those alleged assets can be recovered.
The State’s Official Assignee for bankruptcies would then take the men’s alleged assets and give them to the families, all of whom lost relatives when the Real IRA bombed the centre of Omagh, Co. Tyrone, on August 15, 1998.
The 20th anniversary of the bombing falls tomorrow, when the families will hold a memorial service at the exact spot where the 500lb car bomb exploded on Market Street, Omagh, killing 29 people including a woman pregnant with twins. It’ll be the first time a service has been held at the site.
Michael Gallagher, who lost his son Aiden in the bombing, spearheaded the legal case against the four men found liable for the bombing in a landmark civil case brought by the victims’ families. Last night, he told the Irish Daily Mail: ‘We will not rest until we get those assets. Otherwise, it is a hollow victory if we don’t get them to hand over anything at all.
‘I’m glad we took the case, and exposed them, but you also think they should have to pay in some way for what they have done.’
Although all four were found civilly liable for the bombing in a 2009 ruling by a Belfast court, they don’t have convictions for the crime.
The Mail has learned lawyers for the families will apply in the High Court in Dublin in the next week for a full bankruptcy hearing in September, in which they will present evidence of the men’s alleged assets, gathered over several years of investigation.
As part of that discovery process, two of the men, Campbell and Murphy, were both forced to appear before the High Court, where they denied having any substantial assets or cash.
Murphy, who denied having anything to do with the Omagh bombing or involvement in the IRA, told the court that his thriving construction business ‘got f***ed up’ after he was accused of involvement in the explosion and claimed a family situation had caused him great expense.
However, lawyers for the families will tell the court that their investigations have determined that Murphy is a wealthy businessman, who deliberately dispersed millions of euro in assets to evade the Omagh families’ lawsuit.
Those alleged assets include his share of the pub The Emerald in Dundalk, which he owned with his ex-wife Anne. Assets he allegedly dispersed to other people include a building and hairdressers, also in Dundalk, development land between Dundalk and Drogheda, a construction company and a house in Ravensdale, north Louth, according to transcripts of the High Court case seen by the Mail.
Murphy made millions during the Celtic Tiger boom and had major contracts in Dublin; his company did the brickwork for the International Financial Services Centre in the capital, the science building at Dublin City University, and many other projects.
The lawyers are also focused on the assets of Campbell. In 2003, the Criminal Assets Bureau presented him with a bill for over €750,000 for illegally importing large amounts of cigarettes and alcohol from Eastern Europe.
In the High Court in Dublin in 2015, Campbell denied that he had dispersed six properties in Westmeath and Mayo to other people to avoid paying up in the Omagh civil case. He said he has been on the dole most of his life and has no assets, apart from a half share in his family home in Upper Faughart, north Louth, and three-and-a-half acres adjoining it.
Campbell is currently fighting extradition to Lithuania where he is accused of organising a massive arms and explosives shipment for the Real IRA. He was released on bail by the High Court in Dublin.
A legal source said that they now believe they have enough evidence to have a bankruptcy court seize the four men’s alleged assets in the Omagh case.
‘If it can be shown that they dissipated their assets in anticipation of the civil case against them, then the court can unwind those assets from other people and have them included,’ the source said.
Under Irish law, anyone can apply to have someone declared bankrupt if the debtor owes more than €20,000. During the bankruptcy process, the ownership of the person’s property and assets transfer to the Official Assignee in Bankruptcy, a State office, to be sold by them for the debtors – in this case the Omagh victims.
As well as assets, any income above ‘reasonable living expenses’ must be contributed towards the debt for up to three years.
Discharge from bankruptcy normally happens after one year. However, this could also be extended if a person does not fully cooperate with the process.
The four men’s debt to the Omagh families arises from a 2009 lawsuit, when Judge Declan Morgan, in the High Court in Belfast, ruled that Campbell, McKevitt, Murphy and Daly were responsible for the Omagh bombing and owed the families £1.6million (€1.8million) for personal injury.
The Kevin Winters solicitor firm in Belfast – which represented the men in their challenge to the civil case, and which represented Daly when 29 counts of murder in Omagh against him were dropped – did not reply to a request for comment by the Mail yesterday.
In 2003, the Special Criminal Court found that Michael McKevitt was the leader of the Real IRA, based on the evidence of FBI informant David Rupert, and jailed him for 20 years.
Séamus Daly was convicted in 2004 of Real IRA membership after he was caught red-handed with fertiliser explosives.
He was later charged with 29 counts of murder for his alleged involvement in the Omagh bombing. However, the charges against him were dropped in 2016 because of inconsistencies in a witness’s evidence.
‘I’m glad we took the case’ Murder charges were dropped
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