Court to rule on Omagh trial for Real IRA suspect
A magistrate will rule tomorrow on whether the Omagh bomb suspect should stand trial for the murders of the 29 people killed in the Real IRA atrocity and a host of other terrorist offences.
After a three-day committal hearing at Belfast Magistrates’ Court, magistrate Desmond Perry said he would rule in the morning on whether Sean Hoey, 36, should be sent for trial on the 61 terrorist and explosive charges against him.
During submissions on day three of the committal hearing the Crown revealed that timers used in the Real IRA bombing campaign of 1998, including the Omagh bomb, all came from the same French factory.
Gordon Kerr QC said the timers were all made in the 10th week of 1997 and shipped to an outlet in Dundalk just across the border.
Mr Kerr said the evidence against Hoey, of Molly Road, Jonesborough, on the South Armagh border, was “circumstantial but cumulative”.
He added: "It is the totality of evidence which we say proves there is a prima facie case to be answered.”
Mr Kerr said it was the Crown case that all the bombs in the Real IRA 1998 campaign were linked to each other and to the accused.
He said it was the Crown case that Hoey had been the maker of the timing power units in the bombs used by the Real IRA in the campaign.
“We say it is common sense that in an illegal organisation you are not going to be dealing with a large population of timer power unit makers,” he said.
He listed the similarities between the bombs and said it was his case that the bombs did not just contain similar materials but were similar in making. He pointed out that while all the Northern Ireland bombs were the same they were different to others used by the Real IRA outside the jurisdiction.
He pointed out experts had told the hearing that fibre evidence linked Hoey to eight of the devices and DNA linked him to three.
A voice expert had tied him to a warning phoned to the emergency services about one of the bombs.
Significantly, said Mr Kerr, Hoey could be also linked to another bomb by DNA and fibres which had been planted in Co Tyrone in 2001.
He said there could be no possibility of cross-contamination of fibres or DNA from that bomb to those in 1998 and he submitted that a strengthened the case against the accused.
Defence barrister Martin O’Rourke argued that the case against his client was “of such a tenuous nature” that no jury could rightly convict and therefore Hoey should not be returned for trial.
He said each charge should be looked at individually by the magistrates and tested before the accused was committed for trial on it.
He said: “This is not about a large cauldron put before the court with implications the accused was probably involved in some incidents and was therefore involved in all.
“It is not a case of a row of dominos where there is evidence which knocks on to other charges.”
And he said significantly Mr Hoey had not been charged with membership of any republican organisation which may have planted bombs.
Turning to the DNA evidence he said: “This case stands with the Crown assertion that this individual can be linked by DNA to some of the devices.
“The defence does not accept that the DNA is that of the accused or that it is there by reason of guilty association.”
And he said the fibres which were said to connect his client to devices came from a very common source which meant it could not be discounted that different people had made different bombs.
