The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Judge backs Omagh bomb investigation
Ajudge has recommended the UK Government investigates the Omagh bombing, and urged the Irish Government to do likewise, after finding “plausible arguments” that there had been a “real prospect” of preventing the atrocity.
Delivering judgment in a legal challenge against the UK Government’s refusal to hold a public inquiry, Mr Justice Horner said a human rights-compliant probe is needed to examine whether a more “proactive” security approach against dissident terrorists in the lead-up to the Real IRA bombing may have thwarted it.
The outrage in August 1998 killed 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins.
It was the worst single atrocity of the Northern Ireland Troubles.
Eight years ago Michael Gallagher, whose son Aiden was killed in the blast, launched the judicial review against the UK Government’s refusal to order a public inquiry into security failings prior to the bombing.
Delivering the judgment in Belfast High Court, Mr Justice Horner said: “I am satisfied that certain grounds when considered separately or together give rise to plausible allegations that there was a real prospect of preventing the Omagh bombing.
“These grounds involve, inter alia, the consideration of terrorist activity on both sides of the border by prominent dissident terrorist republicans leading up to the Omagh bomb.
“I am therefore satisfied that the threshold under Article 2 ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights) to require the investigation of those allegations has been reached.”
Mr Justice Horner said he was not going to order that the probe takes the form of a public inquiry, explaining he did not want to be “prescriptive”.
He also said he did not have the powers to order the authorities in the Irish Republic to act, but he expressed hope the Irish Government would take a decision to investigate events around the bombing.
“I am not going to order a public inquiry to look at the arguable grounds of preventability,” he said.
“I do not intend to be prescriptive. However, it is for the government or governments to hold an investigation that is Article 2-compliant and which can receive both open and closed materials on the designated grounds.”