Controversial Real IRA ruling overturned

APPEAL court judges in the North yesterday overturned a controversial ruling that the Real IRA was not an illegal organisation.

Incensed relatives of those massacred by the dissident grouping's Omagh bomb attack insisted the damage had been done.

Michael Gallagher, whose son Aiden was among the 29 killed in the August 1998 blast, said the laws need to be reviewed.

"This is irrelevant and should never have needed to be corrected. Questions must be asked of the people responsible for putting the laws together," he said.

"This is the degree of incompetence and indifference I have dealt with over the past five years."

Mr Justice Girvan provoked an outcry when he declared at Belfast Crown Court last month the rogue republican outfit was not listed under the Terrorism Act 2000.

With four men cleared of Real IRA membership due to his decision and later found not guilty of a plot to murder police and soldiers Britain's top legal advisor vowed to challenge the ruling. The Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, referred the case to the city's Court of Appeal.

After studying the issues, the Lord Chief Justice, Sir Brian Kerr, sitting with Lord Justices Nicholson and Campbell, yesterday insisted Britain's parliament was well aware of the Real IRA when the act was passed.

Sir Brian said: "In our judgment it is inconceivable that the legislature did not intend that the 'Real' IRA should be proscribed and that its members should be liable to prosecution for belonging to a proscribed organisation.

He added: "Given the manner in which various groupings of the IRA had been proscribed historically, we consider that it should have been apparent to any member of the 'Real' IRA that he was guilty of an offence under these provisions if he continued his membership or professed it."

The reversal will not affect the four men's acquittal, as the appeal was taken on a point of law.

But as lawyers involved in the case applied for leave to appeal to the House of Lords, Mr Gallagher refused to express relief.

"It's totally unspeakable and devastating that the government could do such a thing," he insisted.

"The highest paid lawyers in the country are there to make sure the law is right and working in the interests of ordinary decent people and yet it has to be tested in court like this.

"The Government have failed to listen to victims and it's one of the reasons why we need a victims' ombudsman."