THE OMAGH families are determined to pursue the Real IRA and the four men implicated in the Omagh bombing for the £1.6 million (€1.86 million) in damages awarded against them by the High Court in Belfast on Monday, according to chief spokesman Michael Gallagher.
Lawyers for the families are already planning how they will seek to extract the compensation from the four men judged to have been involved in different aspects of the Real IRA bombing, Michael McKevitt, Liam Campbell, Colm Murphy and Séamus Daly.
The families’ solicitor Jason McCue said while it would take time and would be difficult, it should be possible for the families to gain some or all of the compensation awarded.
“It is not insurmountable,” he said. He added that “for tactical reasons” he did not want to provide too much detail on how lawyers would proceed on behalf of the 12 Omagh relatives who took the successful civil case.
Mr McCue said yesterday that the situation should become clearer when the judge, Mr Justice Morgan, addresses outstanding matters arising from the case later this month. This hearing should deal with issues such as costs and whether any or all of the four liable for damages were planning to appeal the decision.
One lawyer indicated to The Irish Times that appeals were likely from one or more of the four judged to have been implicated in the August 1998 Real IRA bombing that claimed the lives of 29 people including a woman pregnant with twins.
Mr McCue said that the process of extracting compensation from the defendants would take time considering that McKevitt is in prison in the South on Real IRA charges and that Campbell is on remand in prison in Northern Ireland facing extradition to Lithuania to face gun-smuggling allegations. There was an additional cross-jurisdictional element to the case considering that the two other defendants, Murphy and Daly live in the Republic. There was also the factor of what assets the Real IRA, which is also liable for damages, might have, he said.
Mr McCue added that in relation to the Real IRA, the American government froze money belonging to the organisation when it was banned in the US. There was also the question of whether the 32 County Sovereignty Movement, alleged to be the political wing of the Real IRA, was liable. “All of those things have to be sorted out before enforcement,” he said.
Mr McCue said that “there were rumours” that certain of the four had moved houses and other assets “into other names once we had started the action”.
He did not know whether this was true or not but regardless such assets could still be seized.
“The Omagh families are protected in such a case. If any of [the four] moved assets once notice of this action was given, then the families can still claim those assets,” he said.
Mr Gallagher, whose 21-year-old son Aiden was killed in the blast, said the families were determined to pursue the four and the Real IRA itself. “We want to make sure that justice is seen to be done here,” he said.
“It would have been a very hollow victory if it had only been words. This is the thing that these people value most – their possessions, their assets and their money – so we will be making every effort to try and recover the money that was awarded to us.”
As most of the assets of the four were likely to be in the Republic, Mr Gallagher said the families would be seeking assistance from the Criminal Assets Bureau, the Department of Justice, the Garda Síochána and the Revenue Commissioners. They would also be seeking assistance from the US authorities over Real IRA money frozen in the US.
Mr Gallagher said the families were not pursuing the damages for personal gain but to ensure the judgment was upheld and to hold to account those found to be involved in the Omagh outrage.