First minister can’t use office to back Omagh prosecution

The Stormont First and Deputy First Ministers have been advised they cannot use their offices to support the campaign to raise funds for a private prosecution against those suspected of planting the Omagh bomb, it emerged today.

First Minister David Trimble (UUP, Upper Bann) told the Assembly that legal advisors told them as officeholders they could not throw their weight behind the prosecution being taken by relatives of those killed in the Real IRA bomb.