Omagh-accused Seamus Daly due in court on 29 murder charges
A republican successfully sued over the Omagh bomb is due in court today charged with murdering the 29 victims of the Real IRA outrage.
Seamus Daly, 43, from Cullaville, Co Monaghan, has already been found liable for the August 1998 attack in the Co Tyrone town in a landmark civil case.
Last night, detectives charged him with 29 counts of murder, two charges linked to the explosion in Omagh and two counts linked to an attempted explosion in Lisburn in April 1998.
He is due to appear before a district judge at Dungannon Magistrates’ Court in Co Tyrone.
Michael Gallagher, whose son Aiden was killed at Omagh, said the victims' families had maintained pressure on the authorities over the case.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “It has been a long, difficult struggle. We have put the police, and both the British and Irish governments, under tremendous pressure and we continue to do that and we don’t apologise for it.
“It is something that, as victims, you have a certain resilience. We think of the people that we lost – in our case our only son Aiden – and that gives us the strength to carry on.”
Daly was arrested by officers from the PSNI's Serious Crime Branch in the Newry area on Monday.
The 29 victims, who included a woman pregnant with twins, died after the dissident republican car bomb detonated in Omagh town centre on a busy Saturday afternoon.
It was the single bloodiest terrorist attack in the history of the Troubles and came only months after the signing of the historic Good Friday peace accord.
No one has been successfully convicted of the bombing in a criminal court.
Five years ago Daly was one of four men found responsible for the bombing at Belfast High Court after being sued by some of the victims’ families.
The men were ordered to pay £1.6m to the bereaved relatives – money they are still pursuing.
Daly, who denied involvement, faced a civil retrial after successfully appealing against the original finding, but the second trial delivered the same outcome as the first, with judge Mr Justice John Gillen ruling him responsible for the attack.
