A Garda Superintendent told the Special Criminal Court yesterday he had information that a mobile phone belonging to a Co Louth building contractor was in Omagh the day the town was bombed over three years ago.
Supt Thomas Flannery said he issued a search warrant relating to Mr Murphy's house on February 20th, 1999.
He told prosecuting counsel Mr Tom O'Connell SC that an investigation had been based in Carrickmacross since the Omagh bombing on August 15th, 1998, and into the stealing of a car used in the bombing.
Based on information gathered by the investigation team he had reasonable grounds for believing that evidence relating to the offence would be found at Mr Murphy's house.
He said he had information that a telephone which was the property of Mr Murphy could be put in Omagh on August 15th and there was also the possibility that documents relating to the phone would be found on his property.
He was giving evidence on the second day of the trial of Colm Murphy (49), a building contractor and publican who is a native of Co Armagh with an address at Jordan's Corner, Ravensdale, Co Louth. He has pleaded not guilty to conspiring in Dundalk with another person not before the court to cause an explosion in the State or elsewhere between August 13th and 16th, 1998.
The prosecution are alleging Mr Murphy "lent aid" to the people who planted the Omagh bomb but Mr Murphy's defence are challenging the admissibility of evidence relating to the Omagh bomb.
Supt Flannery was giving evidence in a "trial within a trial" after the defence challenged the issuing of warrants, the arrest and detention of Mr Murphy and interviews carried out while he was in Garda custody.
Cross-examined by defence counsel Mr Michael O'Higgins SC, the Supt Flannery said Mr Murphy was arrested for possession of explosives in Dundalk between August 13th and 15th, 1998. He said Mr Murphy had said he was not in Omagh on the day of the bombing and had given names to the garda∅ to back up his story and also initially denied giving his phone to anybody.
"I was aware that there was information about Mr Murphy's phone and that it could be placed in Omagh on the day of the explosion," he added. He said that garda information was that the bomb had been assembled in the Carrickmacross, Dundalk, south Armagh area.
Asked if Mr Murphy was arrested simply because of the information that his mobile phone was in Omagh, Supt Murphy said garda∅ had suspicions in relation to his involvement because of his associates and their involvement in other incidents in the Dundalk area.
Earlier Sgt Martin Miller said he was working as a communications officer at the RUC station in Omagh when he received a message on his computer at 2.34 p.m. The message came from the RUC's Belfast Regional Control and came up on his computer screen .
The message said a bomb would go off in 30 minutes at the courthouse on Main Street and had the codeword "Malta Pope." Sgt Miller said he informed the duty sergeant about the warning and relayed the information to RUC officers and told them to start clearing the town.
He said that one or two minutes after the first message he received a telephone call from the RUC in Coleraine about a bomb in Omagh. After talking to an RUC officer in Coleraine, two bomb warnings appeared at the same time on his computer screen.
He also got a telephone call from the Belfast Regional Control giving a 15-minute warning.
Sgt Miller said: "At approximately 3.05 p.m. I heard a large explosion." He said the computers and telephones then went off line.
Cross-examined by Murphy's counsel Mr Michael O'Higgins SC, Sgt Miller agreed the original warning was sent to a receptionist at UTV in Belfast who had then contacted the RUC.
Sgt Miller said the later warning came from the Samaritans and he agreed that the warning used a different codeword - "Martha Pope".
Sgt Philip Marshall of the RUC in Omagh said that he had difficulty clearing premises near the courthouse after the initial bomb warning.
He said he and other officers cleared High Street but did not locate any suspicious vehicle. He said he witnessed the bomb going off in Market Street.
The trial continues today.