Omagh prosecutions 'may have stopped killings'
The failure to successfully prosecute those behind the Omagh bomb might have contributed to this week’s security force deaths in the North, it was claimed today.
The British and Irish governments must take some responsibility for recent dissident republican attacks which killed a policeman and two soldiers, a father of one of the Omagh victims claimed.
Michael Gallagher, whose son Aiden died in the 1998 Real IRA car bomb blast, criticised the authorities’ failure to secure prosecutions.
“If they had put those people behind bars it would have sent a strong message to the terrorists and may have prevented some of those involved in the planning, preparation, or the actual terrorist attacks themselves,” he said.
Thousands of people attended rallies across the country to show their anger at the latest murders.
Silent protests took place in Belfast, Lisburn, Newry, Downpatrick and Derry.
A peace vigil is also to be held in Craigavon, County Armagh, near the site where PSNI constable Stephen Paul Carroll was shot dead on Monday.
Sappers Mark Quinsey and Patrick Azimkar were shot dead at their Massereene Army Barracks in Antrim on Saturday night as they collected a pizza delivery.
Mr Gallagher was speaking in Madrid on the fifth anniversary of the Spanish train bombings which killed 191 people. The Omagh explosion murdered 31 people on a busy shopping day in the centre of the Co Tyrone market town, the worst single atrocity of the conflict.
Mr Gallagher has called for a cross-border public inquiry, including the authorities north and south, into events before and after the bombing.
“The British and Irish governments must take a certain amount of responsibility for the shocking events in Northern Ireland these past few days," he said.
“They had the opportunity yet did not successfully prosecute the Real IRA suspects involved in the Omagh bomb.
“So the message they have sent out from this failure is that you can murder 31 innocent people, including two unborn children, and get away with it.”
Co Armagh electrician Sean Hoey was tried for the killings but acquitted.
Mr Gallagher said the families had been forced to take a civil legal case against those they held responsible.
