Suspects of Omagh bomb gang are still ‘walking free in our capital 20 years on’
Real IRA ‘did not act alone’ in worst atrocity of Troubles
HALF a dozen suspects believed to be connected to the Omagh bombing are to this day walking free on the streets of Dublin, with security sources insisting that the Real IRA did not act alone when committing the worst atrocity in the history of the Troubles, when 29 were killed.
Five men live seemingly ordinary lives in different parts of the capital. One works as a taxi driver and another is an electrician. Others now live in Kildare and Dundalk, a senior security source close to the investigation told the Irish Mail on Sunday.
One suspect, a woman who lives in Dublin, is still involved in Provisional Sinn Féin, as she was at the time of the bombing on August 15, 1998. Despite this, she has never been questioned about her role with the dissident Real IRA.
Two identified individuals maintain close links with a number of different drugs gangs in Dublin, while others still use the IRA name ‘for protection’.
Five individuals well-known to the PSNI and gardai, having been arrested in connection with other terrorism-related offences, remain living in Dundalk.
Codes such as ‘we are crossing the line’ and ‘the brick is in the wall’ have been phrases synonymous with the Troubles, and those who uttered them that day, in recorded telephone conversations to indicate they were in transit and the bomb in place and secured, have never been brought to justice. Support groups for the victims now believe they will never spend a day behind bars.
Relatives of those killed in the attack have expressed disappointment that Taoiseach Leo Varadkar will not be attending two memorial services in Omagh in the coming days - and that he has yet to meet with them after more than a year in office.
One person connected with the Omagh bombing is still active with the 32 County Sovereignty Movement, commonly referred to as 32 CSM, the Irish republican group founded by Bernadette Sands McKevitt, sister of hunger striker Bobby Sands.
In the early days of a new peace, just months after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, the blast - which killed 29 people and left hundreds more with life-threatening injuries - was claimed by the Real IRA.
However, a senior security source told the MoS that while the Real IRA claimed responsibility for the attack, there was much more widespread accountability.
‘The Omagh Bomb was not an isolated event but one of a series of bomb attacks that had taken place in Northern Ireland. The Real IRA were blamed and subsequently admitted same and stood their members down temporarily.
‘However, it was a combination of members from the Continuity IRA, the INLA, Real IRA men and members still with the Provisional IRA who were involved in organising this and other attacks.
The source said: ‘It was the Continuity’s IRA “turn” to claim this attack but Ruairi Ó Bradaigh of Republican Sinn Fein quickly denied any role in the attack and condemned it.
‘From September 1997, the Army Council and Provos were on ceasefire - officially. But all preparations for the bomb and other bombs took place with the approval of senior local IRA men. People who stored the car and fitted the shocks were all involved in the Provisional IRA,’ said the source.
‘Later, searches by gardai located the fertiliser and sugar used, and the paint used and decals [plastic covers] for the number plates.
‘In January 1998, a car bomb failed to detonate in Banbridge, Co Down. In Howth, on January 8, Real IRA members were arrested after bomb-making material was found on Howth pier.
‘Over the next few months, mortar attacks, shootings and car bombs became the staple form of attack. Members were sent to England to plant bombs but gardaí monitored them and the units were arrested in England,’ the source continued.
‘The [dissidents’] finance department arranged a robbery of a cashin-transit van on May 1. Gardai were waiting and arrested the unit, shooting dead one member.
‘The explosive mix [used in Omagh] was the same as that used by the Provos only months earlier at Thiepval barracks [in Lisburn].
‘The cars were packed, with new shock absorbers for the extra weight and mix, in Kildare. The Timer Power Unit (TPU) used to detonate the bombs was slightly different.
‘Those who developed the TPU and booster tubes for the car bombs were based in Kildare and Dublin. None were arrested. There was a core group of between 15 and 20 men in all the attacks in the North. These were the people who stole the cars, modified them, mixed and packed the explosives, fixed the TPUs and boosters, and then scouted the cars and delivered the
‘There was a core group of men in all attacks’
bombs,’ said the source.
On August 13, a maroon Vauxhall Cavalier was stolen by two young men in Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan and driven to Dundalk.
‘Over August 14, the car was modified, new number plates attached and it was loaded with the explosive mix,’ a source told the MoS.
The registration plate was changed from 91 DL 2554 to MDZ 5211, and parked outside SD Kells clothes shop at about 2pm.
At around 2.30pm, a man phoned the UTV newsroom, warning: ‘There’s a bomb, courthouse, Omagh, Main Street, 500lb, explosion 30 minutes’. The man gave the Real IRA codeword: ‘Martha Pope’.
At 2.32pm, a call to a Samaritans office in Coleraine detailed the bomb was 200 yards from the courthouse. UTV then received another phone warning.
Two of the warnings were phoned from a call box in Forkhill, south Armagh, and a third was made from a phone box in Newtownhamilton, also in south Armagh.
Both were passed to the RUC control centre and an evacuation operation commenced.
But as the only target specified was the courthouse, shoppers were moved down to Market Street - towards the bomb.