Call for files of evidence on Omagh bombers
Relatives of the victims to lobby government agencies for help
Sunday December 30 2007
The relatives of the victims of the Omagh bombing will launch a campaign in the New Year to demand the handing over of all intelligence material held by government agencies so it can be used against the dissident republicans involved in the devastating attack on the town.
The British, Irish and Spanish governments will be asked to co-ordinate resources to compile files of evidence against the 10 key republicans identified by intelligence agencies as the main participants in the bombing 10 years ago.
And the new head of MI5 Jonathan Evans will be approached to take the step that his predecessor refused to take and meet with the Omagh relatives.
Omagh victims' group spokesman Michael Gallagher says that they are determined to pursue the killers of their 29 relatives until they are brought before the courts. And he wants the British and Irish governments in particular to open their intelligence books to convict the bombers.
"We will petition the British government, the Irish government and the Spanish government to begin the process of bringing the main participants in the Omagh bombing to trial," he said.
"All three governments lost citizens in the attack and it is their responsibility to put together the intelligence evidence and bring these people to court. There is information about mobile phone calls in the files and many other details that we are aware of which have not been used in an evidential way and we want to see all that amassed information provided to prosecutors so the killers can be put in the dock together."
The Omagh man, who lost his son Aidan in the devastating explosion, said that the trial of Klaus Barbie, the brutal Nazi Gestapo chief in Lyon during the Second World War, was an example of what can be achieved.
"Barbie wasn't put on trial until 1987 in Lyon, more than 40 years after the war, so that proves that when governments want to bring people to justice they can succeed, no matter how long it takes from the time of the atrocity.
"In the new year we will launch a campaign to bring the 10 most senior republicans involved in the Omagh attack to justice. We are not deterred by anything that has gone before," he said.
"The two governments here control the intelligence information that could unlock the door to convictions in the Omagh case and we intend to ask them for that information to be presented to prosecutors. The police forces on both sides of the border have that information but to date the necessary cooperation has not been evident and we want that situation to change. We want all that information handed over," said Mr Gallagher.
And Mr Gallagher said the relatives will again ask MI5 to put their case for disclosure through a face to face meeting with Jonathan Evans.
"We want to specifically ask him why his agency didn't inform the RUC that it had information in the weeks before the bombing that Omagh was a potential terrorist target," he said.
"But that is only part of it, we want a concerted effort from the British and Irish governments to compile the legal case against the perpetrators of the Omagh massacre and we believe that can be done.
"The authorities are regularly appealing to the public to come forward to provide information and give evidence but when it comes to putting their own agents at risk they aren't so adventurous. We want the police chiefs in Belfast and Dublin to do what they are regularly asking the public to do and we want MI5 to put their former agents before the courts to give evidence in the Omagh trials," he said.
- Alan Murray
