Seamus Daly charged with Omagh Bombing

Man charged with murder of 29 people in 1998 Omagh bombing
Republican Seamus Daly, who has already been found liable for the bombing in a civil case, is charged with 29 counts of murder



Sixteen years after a Real IRA bomb exploded in the centre of Omagh killing 29 men, women and children in the Co Tyrone town a high-profile republican will appear in court on Friday morning charged with the mass murder.

Seamus Daly will face charges in connection with the single biggest atrocity of the Northern Ireland Troubles.

The 43-year-old has already been named as one of the men behind the Omagh bomb in a civil action taken by relatives of the victims, who died when the explosion aimed at killing police officers clearing the area ripped through the centre of the market town in August 1998.

No one has ever successfully been prosecuted for the massacre in Omagh.

Daly, 43, from Cullaville, County Monaghan, in the Republic of Ireland, was arrested in Newry on Monday after he crossed the border.

A spokeswoman for the Police Service of Northern Ireland said: "Detectives from serious crime branch investigating the 1998 Omagh bombing have charged a 43-year-old man with the murders of the 29 people who died in the explosion and a number of other offences.

"The 43-year-old, who was arrested in the Newry area last Monday, was charged at Antrim police station this evening. He faces 29 murder charges relating to the blast on 15 August 1998, two charges in relation to the Omagh explosion and two charges in relation to an attempted explosion in Lisburn in April 1998, a total of 33 charges."

The father of a young man who died in the bombing said the Police Service of Northern Ireland's decision to press charges was an "important and positive development".

Michael Gallagher, who has fought for justice for the Omagh victims since the day his son Aidan died in the blast, said: "We have put the police under pressure to pursue the investigation."

In 2009 Daly was one of four men found responsible in Belfast High Court for being behind the bomb. Daly, who has always denied being involved in the Real IRA bomb plot, was being sued with the three others by relatives of the Omagh victims.

All were ordered to pay £1.6m to the bereaved relatives.

Daly faced a civil retrial after successfully appealing against the original finding, but the second trial delivered the same outcome as the first, with judge Mr Justice John Gillen ruling him responsible for the attack. He is due to appear in court in Dungannon on Friday.

The mass killing – whose victims included a mother heavily pregnant with twins – came just four months after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, the peace deal that marked a historic compromise between unionists and nationalists on the island of Ireland.

The Omagh bomb was the bloody culmination of an eight-month-long terror campaign by the Real IRA to destabilise Northern Ireland and prevent the prospect of a political settelement between former unionist, nationalist and republican enemies.

The victims at Omagh ranged from an 18-month-old child to a 65-year-old woman, and the death toll included local Protestants, Catholics and a 23-year-old man from Madrid. A number of Spanish schoolchildren in Omagh for the summer holidays were also badly injured in the blast.

The bomb was driven to Omagh from County Monaghan on Saturday, 13 August 13. It is believed the bombers could not find a parking space near their intended target, the courthouse, and instead parked it near the town centre.

The Real IRA telephoned three warnings about a bomb near the courthouse. The police were in the process of moving people away from the courthouse to the actual location of the bomb when it exploded. In addition to the dead, 220 people were injured.

The Real IRA admitted responsibility three days after the attack but claimed its target was commercial. They blamed the loss of life on failure of Royal Ulster Constabulary to respond to "clear" warnings.

Mo Mowlam, the Northern Ireland secretary at the time, described called the statement as "a pathetic excuse for mass murder".

One week after the attack 60,000 people gathered in Omagh to commemorate the dead with thousands more attending vigils in other towns and cities across Ireland.

Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, the leaders of Sinn Féin, condemned the bombing. The outrage caused by it strengthened supporters of the Good Friday agreement. Within two weeks, the Irish National Liberation Army also had called a ceasefire. The Provisional IRA, which supported the agreement, put pressure on other dissidents to observe the ceasefire.

After the international outrage following the atrocity the Real IRA declared a ceasefire although not everyone in the dissident republican community agreed that "armed struggle" should be ended.

The Real IRA has since disbanded and remnants of the organisation later joined a new hardline, anti-ceasefire alliance with other dissidents called the new IRA. Their armed campaigns continue to this day.

Several people have been charged in connection with bombing but no one has been convicted. Colm Murphy, from Ravensdale, County Louth, was convicted of conspiracy to cause the bombing in 2002 in Dublin but that his conviction was quashed on appeal when it emerged that Irish police had falsified interview notes.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/apr/10/man-charged-murder-29-people-omagh-bombing

The juxtaposition of him being charged and Martin McGuinness having dinner with the Queen is really quite weird.