Thief cleared of role in Omagh bombing
Saturday August 05 2006
Small-time criminal Paddy Dixon was taken into the Garda's witness security programme after Det Sgt White named him as his tout.
Dixon feared that his life was in danger from the Real IRA after his role became public knowledge. He was moved to a new address outside the jurisdiction.
The Nally inquiry team asked him to give evidence about the information he had supplied to Det Sgt White. However, on legal advice he decided not to co-operate.
It was learned last night that Dixon, a Dubliner, was arrested by the PSNI last April and taken into custody. He was questioned by senior officers in the Omagh bomb investigation team. Officers were satisfied that he knew nothing about the Omagh bombing and he was released without charge.
He continues to live outside the jurisdiction.
Det Sgt White developed Dixon as an informant when he worked as a detective garda with the plainclothes unit in Blanchardstown, west Dublin. He continued the association after he moved to Co Donegal on promotion.
When Dixon's gang began stealing cars to order for a supplier to the Real IRA, the information about its activities became crucially important to the Garda's crime and security branch, which was controlling the force's fight against dissident republican groups.
The details that Det Sgt White supplied led to the Emergency Response Unit (ERU) intercepting cars as they were being prepared for terrorist attacks.
As a direct result of information supplied by Dixon, the ERU intercepted a car fitted with a thousand pounds of explosives at Dun Laoghaire car ferry as it was about to be taken to Britain for an attack, possibly at the Aintree Grand National meeting in Liverpool in April 1998.
Other information that Dixon gave to Det Sgt White led to the ERU recovering hauls of explosives that were about to be used in two cross-Border attacks.
The series of garda successes delivered a huge setback to the Real IRA. Its leadership decided it could no longer trust members of its Dublin brigade. It became effectively defunct from the end of May 1998.
Responsibility for supplying vehicles for attacks in the North was switched from the Dublin brigade to Border-based activists and the South Armagh brigade. Dixon's gang was no longer used by the dissidents from early June 1998.
By the time of the Omagh atrocity on August 15, 1998, Dixon was "well out of the loop" as far as the Real IRA leadership was concerned.
The vehicle used in the Omagh blast was acquired from thieves operating in the Dundalk area.
- Tom Brady
