A mobile phone belonging to a man charged in connection with the Omagh bombing could have been brought to Omagh and back to Dundalk on the day of the bombing, according to prosecution evidence heard at his trial yesterday.
It was the 17th day of the trial of Mr Colm Murphy (49), a publican and former builder with an address at Jordan's Corner, Ravensdale, Co Louth.
Mr Murphy 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 is alleging that Mr Murphy "lent aid" to the people who planted the Omagh bomb.
Earlier in the trial Det Garda James B. Hanley told the court that Mr Murphy had admitted in interviews that he lent his mobile phone to known republicans, knowing it would be used for moving bombs.
Yesterday the Special Criminal Court heard details of 11 calls to and from Mr Murphy's mobile phone on the afternoon of August 15th, 1998, the date of the Omagh bombing.
Six of the calls were routed through mobile phone masts on the Vodafone network in Co Tyrone, including one through a mast sited at the Omagh College of Further Education, Bridge Street, Omagh.
The remaining five were routed on the Eircell network on masts sited south of the Border.
Mobile-phone company records detailed in court show that the first call was made at 12:41 p.m. and was routed through a mast sited in Castleblayney, Co Monaghan.
The next nine went through masts at Emyvale, Co Monaghan; Aughnacloy, Co Tyrone; Bridge Street, Omagh; Pigeon Top, Mount Pollnaghunt, Co Tyrone; Ballygawley, Co Tyrone; Cavan Garvan, Stranooden, Co Monaghan; and Castleblayney, Co Monaghan.
The final call, at 17:23, was routed through the mobile mast at Clarmont Carns, north of Dundalk.
The court heard that at 13:57 a call was made from Mr Murphy's mobile to another man's mobile for 28 seconds. The call was routed through the mast in Bridge Street, Omagh. At 14:09 the other man's mobile rang Mr Murphy's phone in a call that lasted eight seconds. That call was also routed through the Bridge Street mast.
Under cross-examination by Mr Richard Humphreys, defending, Mr Kevin Dowling, a technical support manager with Eircell, and Mr Raymond Clive Green, a fraud and investigations manager at Vodafone, each agreed that the mobile companies did not know who made the calls, what was said or indeed whether anything was said.
Mr Clive Green also agreed that a call could be routed through a mast even if it was not the nearest to the phone at the time.
The trial continues today in the Special Criminal Court.