The British government faces legal action within a week if it does not hand over intelligence files which could have helped catch the Omagh bombers, grieving relatives warned today.
Revelations that the security services were recording the Real IRA plotters' phone calls on the way to Omagh in 1998 leave victims with no other option, family members told a meeting in Belfast.
Twenty-nine people, including a woman pregnant with twins, died in the bombing in the Co Tyrone town.
Michael Gallagher, whose son Aiden was killed, said there could be criminal proceedings for perverting the course of justice.
He said: "We believe the intelligence services, the police service and those who work in law and order have responsibility and have to live up to that responsibility, and there has to be some degree of accountability.
"Until we do have that, we will have an intelligence service that is possibly out of control and a law unto itself."
Mr Gallagher was joined by about a dozen other relatives including Carol Radford and Stanley McComb.
Ms Radford said: “The whole point is to try to put the bad guys away, what is the point of gathering it (intelligence), if you are not going to use it? The government can’t walk away from this.”
Mr Gallagher said he would be writing to PSNI chief constable Sir Hugh Orde and had also sent letters to the Irish and Spanish governments, whose citizens died.
“We feel that there may be a criminal act committed here, there could be the perversion of justice, there is a charge of withholding information about a serious crime,” he added.
Families have demanded an independent public inquiry on both sides of the Border to probe the failure to intercept the killers or put anybody behind bars.
PA