FORMER REAL IRA leader Michael McKevitt and one of his former closest associates Liam Campbell have lost appeals against a court judgment which found them responsible for the 1998 Real IRA Omagh bombing.
However, two other senior dissidents, Colm Murphy and Séamus Daly – who two years ago were also held liable for the bombing, which killed 29 people including a woman pregnant with twin girls – were successful in their appeals yesterday. None of the four was present to hear the judgment.
Lord Justice Higgins at the Belfast Court of Appeal yesterday dismissed the appeals of McKevitt and Campbell but ruled that a retrial should be held in the case of Murphy. McKevitt is in prison in the Republic for directing terrorism, and Campbell is in custody in the North facing possible extradition to Lithuania on arms smuggling charges.
Lord Justice Higgins and his two judicial colleagues, Lord Justice Girvan and Lord Justice Coghlin, ruled arguments would be heard in respect of whether Daly should also face a retrial. The civil case will come up for mention again on September 9th.
Members of the Omagh families who took the civil case against McKevitt, Campbell, Murphy and Daly expressed disappointment but said they accepted the court ruling. Michael Doherty, father of Aidan, who died in the explosion of August 15th, 1998, expressed a determination to pursue the civil case against Murphy and, depending on the future ruling of the Court of Appeal, against Daly.
No one has been convicted of the Omagh bombing in a criminal court. In the 2009 civil case, the families were awarded £1.6 million in damages against the four dissidents. The Court of Appeal yesterday dismissed a claim from the families for additional punitive damages.
The court also set aside a representation order from the original civil trial that Campbell represented the members of the army council of the Real IRA at the time of the bombing.
In relation to McKevitt and Omagh, the judges said that “while it is inherently unlikely that somebody would become involved in such a terrorist outrage, such unlikelihood is lessened when it is established that the defendant is a committed and active terrorist shown to be willing to participate in serious terrorist crime”.
The court found the case against Campbell – who has since been ostracised by his former Real IRA prisoner colleagues in Maghaberry Prison for “unrepublican conduct” – was “overwhelming”. It referred to how the original judge found there was evidence Campbell both directed and participated in the bombing.
In relation to Murphy, the Court of Appeal found it was not possible to establish clear evidence he obtained a separate mobile phone used during the bombing operation.
There was also weakness in e-mail evidence from a US undercover agent against Murphy, and “greater weight than it merited” was ascribed to this evidence.
In relation to Daly, the court said the original judge, Justice Declan Morgan, now Northern Ireland’s Lord Chief Justice, “appears to have taken into account a statement that should have been excluded, and he also seems to have erroneously given some weight to inadmissible evidence of a conviction”.
The three appeal judges said that “after giving the matter close and anxious consideration it was not persuaded that the trial judge would inevitably have reached the same conclusion as to Daly’s liability if the above misdirections had not occurred”.
Outside the court, Stanley McCombe, whose wife Ann was killed in the bombing, said: “We will fight on to the bitter end.”