Omagh retrial opens
12/01/2010 - 13:13:41The trial opened at the Special Criminal Court in Dublin today of Colm Murphy on charges connected with the 1998 Real IRA bomb in Omagh which killed 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins, and injured 300.
It is the first trial to be held at the Special Criminal Court's new location at the Criminal Courts of Justice complex at Parkgate St.
Murphy pleaded not guilty to conspiring with another person to cause an explosion likely to endanger life or cause serious injury to property between August 13 and 16 1998 in the State or elsewhere.
Prosecuting counsel Tom O' Connell SC told the court that Murphy's mobile phone was active in Omagh at a time consistent with the explosion at Omagh on August 15, 1998. He said that 29 men, women and children were killed in the explosion, over 300 people were injured and hundreds more traumatised.
Murphy's counsel Mr Michael O' Higgins SC objected that his client has not been charged with the Omagh bombing and is facing a conspiracy charge. He said that the defence would be contesting the admissibility of evidence relating to the Omagh bomb.
Murphy (aged 57), a building contractor and publican who is a native of Co Armagh but with an address at Jordan's Corner, Ravensdale, Co Louth, was freed on bail in 2005 after the Court of Criminal Appeal quashed his conviction
Murphy was jailed for 14 years by the Special Criminal Court in January 2002 for his alleged role in the Omagh bomb . He was the first person to be convicted in either the Republic or the North in connection with the Real IRA bombing, the worst terrorist atrocity of the Troubles.
But in January 2005 the Court of Criminal Appeal overturned the conviction and ordered a retrial after finding that the court of trial had failed to give proper regard to altered garda interview notes and that there had been "an invasion of the presumption of innocence'' in the judgment on Murphy.
During a 25-day trial in 2001 and 2002, Murphy had 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 13 and 16, 1998.
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