IRA bomb-maker offers to take lie-detector test at tribunal

A CONVICTED IRA bomb-maker yesterday offered to take a lie-detector test to help prove he was not involved in the Omagh bombing and was not "friendly" with members of the Garda in Dundalk Garda station.

Patrick "Mooch" Blair with an address in Blackrock, Co Louth, who served prison sentences in Northern Ireland and the Republic, acknowledged he was a member of the IRA over three decades from the 1970s. But while he told the Smithwick Tribunal he would be prepared to take a polygraph test in relation to his knowledge of the Omagh bombing and relations with gardaí, he would not undertake such a test in relation to his other evidence regarding his career in the IRA.

Mr Blair also said he wanted IRA informer Peter Keeley (also known as Kevin Fulton), who gave the tribunal evidence that Mr Blair was preparing a bomb three days before the Omagh bombing, to take a lie-detector test. Mr Blair said Mr Keeley's evidence of an IRA informer among gardaí in Dundalk was untrue. He said Mr Keeley was a "fantasist" and a "liar".

Responding to questions from Neil Rafferty, counsel for Mr Keeley, Mr Blair said he was not responsible for the bomb which had killed building materials supplier Kenneth Graham in 1990, nor the "horizontal bomb" that killed an RUC officer in 1982.

Asked about the killing of three RUC officers in Newry as they paused to eat ice creams in 1986, he said: "I am not answering that."

Mr Rafferty asked Mr Blair if it was "pure coincidence" that a 59-second call was made from his phone to the Omagh bombers on the day of the bombing. Mr Blair replied that he had already offered to take a lie-detector test in relation to the Omagh bombing.

However, Mr Rafferty said Mr Blair had come to the tribunal to "rubbish and attack Peter Keeley because you absolutely detest him".

Mr Blair acknowledged it was embarrassing to have been associated with Mr Keeley, whom he now believed to have been a spy for the British security services. But he said he did not hate him. "I don't hate anybody," he said.

Earlier yesterday Mr Blair told counsel for the tribunal Mary Laverty he was not a member of any "nutting squad" - an internal disciplinary faction in the IRA.

Mr Blair was asked by Ms Laverty if it was true that gardaí had at one stage found balaclavas and bars when they stopped a car in which he and others had been travelling. Did this suggest, she asked, that the group were on the way to some form of operation.

Mr Blair replied there had been "one balaclava. One balaclava in the boot". He later added there had been "one bar" in the boot as well.

"As one has," said Ms Laverty.

Daughter of victim confronts witness

PATRICK “MOOCH” Blair was confronted by the daughter of an IRA victim as he left the Smithwick Tribunal yesterday.

Manya Dickinson confronted Mr Blair as he was about to be driven away in a grey saloon car, saying the IRA had killed her father in a bomb attack in 1990. Afterwards Ms Dickinson told reporters Mr Blair had laughed at her. “That’s what we have to put up with,” she said.“It’s not good enough, something has to be done for victims of IRA violence, and this is awful – that man laughed in my face.”

Ms Dickinson’s father Kenneth Graham was killed by an IRA bomb underneath his car on April 27th, 1990, aged 46, when she was 13. The IRA stated afterwards that this was because he supplied building materials to the security forces. Ms Dickinson was accompanied by Families Acting for Innocent Relatives spokesman William Frazer, who said families of victims of the Troubles were forced to confront their loved ones’ killers, sometimes on a daily basis.