Real IRA men appeal Omagh bomb ruling

Four dissident republicans will today begin a court appeal after they were successfully sued by families bereaved in the Omagh bombing.

Four dissident republicans will today begin a court appeal after they were successfully sued by families bereaved in the Omagh bombing.

Michael McKevitt, Seamus Daly, Liam Campbell and Colm Murphy are to challenge the judgment which found them liable for the 1998 bombing.

In a separate move, relatives who were among those that lost loved ones in the attack are also appealing the £1.6m (€1.9m) in compensation recommended in June 2009 after their historic civil action.

The bombing by the breakaway ’Real IRA’ in the Co Tyrone town on August 15 killed 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins. More than 200 were injured in the car bomb blast.

No-one has ever been successfully convicted of the Omagh bombing, with the only man jailed in connection with the attack, 57-year-old Co Louth builder Colm Murphy, cleared after a retrial in Dublin.

In December 2007, Sean Hoey, 38, from Jonesborough, South Armagh, was cleared at Belfast Crown Court of murdering the 29 people. He was acquitted of 58 charges, including some not directly linked to the bombing.

The latest legal challenge over the case is set to begin in the Court of Appeal in Belfast’s Royal Courts of Justice and could last up to two weeks.

The families’ ground-breaking multi-million pound civil action was described by them as a bid to bring as much information into the public domain as possible.

It was the first time a civil action had been brought in a case of its kind.

The legal bid cost an estimated £2m (€2.4m). The families were supported in their efforts to raise funds for the court case by former US president Bill Clinton, former Northern Ireland secretaries Peter Mandelson and Sir Patrick Mayhew as well as musician Bob Geldof and boxing champion Barry McGuigan.

The 12 relatives who launched the landmark civil action said they had done so after the failure of the authorities to secure a successful criminal conviction over the attack and they sued the men who they accused.

Michael Gallagher, whose son Aiden, 21, was among the dead, said the families’ appeal against the compensation case would be heard alongside the appeal by the four dissident republicans challenging the findings of liability.

Mr Gallagher said: “We are appealing the amount that was awarded.

“We were awarded compensation but believed the court should have awarded exemplary damages.”

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