Omagh case:Sean Gerard Hoey, the man accused of the Real IRA bombing of Omagh, the single worst terrorist bombing atrocity in Northern Ireland, was yesterday cleared of all charges against him.
Some in the packed public gallery of Belfast Crown Court clapped when the verdict was announced, while others remained silent and unmoved, as Mr Hoey himself did in the dock.
His acquittal by Mr Justice Weir comes four years, two months, three weeks and five days since the initial arrest of the 38-year-old south Armagh electrician, and just over 11 months since his trial ended in January this year.
Mr Justice Weir in a highly critical, sometimes scathing judgment, acquitted Mr Hoey of Molly Road, Jonesborough, Co Armagh, of all 56 remaining charges he faced, including the murder of the 29 people who died in the Real IRA bombing of Omagh on August 15th, 1998.
The defendant had already been found not guilty on two other charges during the course of his trial in late 2006.
Mr Hoey sat in the dock flanked by two officers and wearing a grey jacket and a blue striped, open-neck shirt. He reacted little throughout the delivery of the 24-page judgment.
The judge outlined the charges laid against the defendant, giving details of some 13 incidents, including the bombing of Omagh, and linking each of the original 58 charges to those incidents.
The prosecution case, he said, was based on three "strands" of evidence, relating to the construction of the bombs used in the series of attacks; the finding of fibres on the timing and power units and also at Mr Hoey's home; and also the DNA evidence.
Dealing with each of these in turn and in considerable detail, Mr Justice Weir concluded that none of these "strands" of evidence offered an acceptable basis for securing a guilty verdict.
Regarding the charge that the same person helped to construct a series of devices, including the Omagh bomb, the judge said that this simply could not be proven.
The second "strand", that fibre evidence had linked the accused to the devices used in the series of attacks, was also dismissed.
"I am not satisfied either beyond a reasonable doubt or to any acceptable standard," said the judge, "to help establish common authorship of the 12 Mark 19 timing and power units." The judge said that the third and final "strand" relating to DNA evidence "cannot satisfy me either beyond a reasonable doubt or to any other acceptable standard".
At the end of his remarks, which took an hour and 20 minutes to deliver, the judge accepted that "the stricken people of Omagh, and every other right-thinking member of the Northern Ireland community" wanted to see convictions - but that convictions could only be made where there was evidence to support them.
"I am acutely aware that the stricken people of Omagh would very much wish to see whoever was responsible for the outrageous events of August 1998 and the other serious crimes in this series of terrorist incidents convicted and punished for their crimes according to the law," said Mr Justice Weir.
However, quoting directly from the Court of Appeal he added: "Justice, according to law, demands proper evidence. By that we mean not merely evidence which might be true and to a considerable extent probably is true, but, as the learned trial judge put it, "evidence which is so convincing in truth and manifestly reliable that it reaches the standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt".
In the case against Mr Hoey, said Mr Justice Weir, "the evidence against the accused in this case did not reach that immutable standard. Accordingly I find Mr Hoey not guilty of each of the remaining counts on the indictment".