Omagh bomb duo did get a fair trial, say Euro judges

BRITAIN has won a major human rights victory with European judges throwing out a claim by republican terrorists behind the Omagh bombing that their trial was unfair.

Convicted Real IRA godfather Michael McKevitt and his secondin-command Liam Campbell were among four men ordered in 2009 to pay £1.6million in damages to relatives of the victims.

It followed a landmark civil action brought by relatives of some of the 29 people killed in the bombing in August 1998. The families received vital backing from the Daily Mail to fight the legal battle.

McKevitt and Campbell, both currently in jail for terror offences, took their case to Europe, claiming the civil ruling had breached their human rights. They had argued that the civil case was incompatible with Article 6 of the Human Rights Act – the right

‘Families have been vindicated’

to a fair trial – lining themselves up for a potential compensation payout.

But yesterday the European Court of Human Rights rejected their claim, which was funded by legal aid.

No one has ever been convicted of the Omagh bombing – the biggest single act of bloodshed in the history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The death toll included nine children, three generations of one family, and a woman pregnant with twins.

But 11 years after the attack – described as ‘a massacre of the innocents’ – a judge at Belfast High Court found McKevitt and Campbell liable for the attack, along with Seamus Daly and republican dissident Colm Murphy. McKevitt and Campbell were not accused of planting the bomb but were said to have been involved in the plot.

In a kick in the teeth to relatives – who are still pursuing the damages – the pair took their case to Europe seeking to overturn the ruling.

They claimed that due to the severity of the charges the court should have applied criminal rather than civil standards of proof.

They also complained that hearsay evidence by an FBI agent, who had infiltrated dissident republican groups, should not have been admitted during the trial. Rejecting both grounds for the application, the Strasbourg-based ECHR said: ‘The national court’s findings could not be said to have been arbitrary or unreasonable. The applicants have not demonstrated that their trial was unfair.’

It threw out their claims as ‘manifestly ill-founded and inadmissible’.

After the ruling, Michael Gallagher, whose son Aiden was killed in the bombing, said: ‘The families have been vindicated. We feel like we have been under siege since the first judgment, with appeal after appeal. We are relieved it is now over.’

Democratic Unionist Party MEP Diane Dodds said it was unfair that the men had access to legal aid to fight their case in Europe and branded it an abuse of human rights laws.

The families have yet to receive a penny from the £1.6million award.