Vital forensic evidence in the case against Sean Hoey, who is accused of a series of dissident republican bombings, was not a "twinkle in the eye" of a forensic expert at the time, a court heard yesterday.
Dr Gerard Murray told Belfast Crown Court that components of a failed Real IRA attack near Belfast in April 1998 had not been checked for Low Copy Number DNA - a method of forensic identification using cells.
"There would have been no LCN DNA requirement at that stage, and items would have been looked at essentially for fingerprints and fibres," he told Mr Justice Weir.
"It was not a twinkle in my eye." Dr Murray is the most senior forensic explosives expert in Northern Ireland.
He examined a timer power unit from the 600lb Lisburn car bomb that was defused by army technical officers in the centre of the city.
Mr Hoey (37), of Molly Road, Jonesborough, Co Armagh, denies 58 terrorism offences.
Senior prosecutor Gordon Kerr QC told the court last month that LCN DNA would be used to convict the defendant.
The Omagh bomb, which killed 29 people, happened less than four months after the failed Lisburn attack and Hoey is charged with murdering those victims. He is also linked with a device found in Co Tyrone in 2001 when LCN DNA was more widely used.
Defence counsel Orlando Pownall said: "If the [ Lisburn] item had been examined for fingerprints before, as we know it had been, the only possible remaining forensic discipline would have been fibres. So the requirement then in 1998 for the utmost care to be taken when examining an exhibit simply was not there."
Dr Murray said he had taken every measure within his knowledge at the time to prevent contamination of the evidence.- (PA)