16 years on, Real IRA man is charged with 29 Omagh bomb murders
IRISH republican Seamus Daly was charged last night with murdering 29 people in the Omagh atrocity.
No one has ever been convicted in the criminal courts of the atrocity in the Northern Ireland border town carried out by the Real IRA in August 1998.
But Daly has previously been found liable in a landmark civil case backed by the Daily Mail which raised money to help bereaved Omagh families bring the terrorists to justice.
In 2009, he was one of four republicans ordered to pay £1.6million compensation to families at Belfast High Court after an 11-year struggle by relatives to name the killers eventually ended in triumph.
Daly, 43, from Cullaville, Co Monaghan in the Irish Republic, was charged last night with 29 counts of murder, a further two charges linked to the explosion in Omagh and two counts linked to an attempted explosion in Lisburn in April 1998.
He was arrested by officers from the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s Serious Crime Branch in the Newry area on Monday. The explosion claimed the lives of 29 victims, including a woman pregnant with twins, and maimed and injured hundreds more.
It was the single bloodiest terrorist attack in the history of the Northern Ireland Troubles and came only months after the signing of the historic Good Friday peace accord.
The decision to prosecute Daly will delight relatives who have long campaigned for justice.
On Tuesday the father of a boy who lost his life held a one-man protest at Windsor Castle where the Queen was hosting a state banquet attended by guests who included Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister and ex-IRA commander Martin McGuinness.
Victor Barker, who lost his 12year- old son James, waved a placard which read: ‘A terrorist in white tie and tails is still a terrorist. Martin McGuinness – it’s time to tell the truth’.
The Barker family had moved their four children to County Donegal from England a year before the bombing. His son was on a coach trip which had visited a theme park before stopping off in the town to do some shopping when the bomb went off.
Mr Barker has repeatedly challenged Mr McGuinness and Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams to call for witnesses to come forward and help identify the people involved in placing a 500lb car bomb in the middle of Omagh.
Two years after the attack the families announced in the Daily Mail their intention to launch a legal action for damages and readers helped raise £1.2million, with the Government then providing the extra £800,000 needed to bring the case to court.
Daly appealed against the original finding of liability. But the second trial in 2013 delivered the same outcome as the first, with j udge Mr Justice John Gillen ruling him responsible for the attack.
The court heard that Daly was linked to the attack based on his conversation on one of the ‘bomb run phones’ less than an hour after the explosion.
Daly’s conviction for Real IRA membership in November 2000 was also taken into account.
He is due to appear in court in Dungannon today.