The Columbus Dispatch

UK to launch probe on Omagh bombing

- Jill Lawless

LONDON – The U.K. government said Thursday it will hold a public inquiry into whether the deadliest bombing in Northern Ireland’s decades of violence could have been prevented.

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-harris announced a judge-led independen­t probe of the 1998 car bombing in the town of Omagh that killed 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins, and wounded hundreds more. An Irish Republican Army dissident group, the Real IRA, claimed responsibi­lity.

A court in 2021 ordered the government to investigat­e in response to a legal challenge by Michael Gallagher, whose son Aiden was killed by the 500-pound bomb. Gallagher alleges that intelligen­ce failings allowed a “preventabl­e atrocity” to occur in the busy market town.

Heaton-harris said the inquiry “will focus specifical­ly on the four grounds which the court held as giving rise to plausible arguments that the bombing could have been prevented,” including whether security services had advance intelligen­ce of the bomb and whether they could have disrupted the plot.

The inquiry is likely to take two years – and potentiall­y much longer. The inquirers will have the power to order evidence to be handed over and to compel witnesses to testify under oath.

Heaton-harris said he hoped the decision to conduct an independen­t inquiry “gives some comfort to those families who have long campaigned for this outcome.”

Gallagher said the inquiry would let bereaved families “hopefully get the answers that we need and we can move on.”

“If we don’t have this process, for the rest of our lives we’re going to be wondering ‘what if,’ ” he said.

The 2021 court ruling said a new investigat­ion should be held in the Republic of Ireland, where most of the suspected bombers were based. The Irish government said it would “consider what further action is required on our part” after the British announceme­nt.

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