'Key Omagh suspects never quizzed by police'

A number of key suspects in the Omagh bombing have never been interviewed by police, it was claimed today.

Victims’ relatives said Justice Minister Michael McDowell had admitted that certain men linked to the atrocity had never been quizzed by detectives.

Michael Gallagher, spokesman for the group, said despite a two-hour meeting with the minister in Dublin, relatives were left disappointed with the information offered to them.

“We do now know that many of the key people who were at the centre of this were not interviewed including the informant,” he said.

“We are totally amazed that this is the case. If the three-man Nally team wanted to get to the truth surely they should have looked at all of the evidence available and not been selective in who they decided to interview.”

He said Mr McDowell told them that if the North’s investigation team or the British authorities wanted to interview the key witness at the centre of the allegations they could do so.

“We told the minister that we feel like one side is playing us off against the other,” he said.

“We feel like we’re going round in circles. In the North they are telling us that because this individual is under the control of the Irish Government they can’t have access to him.”

Mr Gallagher reiterated the relatives’ concerns that the three senior civil servants who formed the Nally team were not the most appropriate people to carry out the inquiry.

“One of the investigation team, Eamon Barnes, former Director of Public Prosecutions, would have made decisions in the days after Omagh about who to prosecute and who not to prosecute,” he said.

“How can he be independent when he has already made decisions around Omagh?”

He said a full judicial inquiry was the only way relatives felt they would get answers. They asked Mr McDowell about evidence the investigation team in the North had requested a year ago but which they had never received.

“This is an ongoing issue and we are going to come back to the minister with details on that,” Mr Gallagher added.

Mr McDowell told relatives he could not share vital information because someone connected with the investigation was due before the courts.

He said he would review the situation when legal proceedings were over, Mr Gallagher said.

The Omagh bomb in August 998 was Northern Ireland’s biggest atrocity, killing 29 people, including the mother of unborn twins.

The Nally report investigated allegations that the gardaí withheld information from police in Northern Ireland which could have helped to prevent the bombing.

The inquiry team, made up of Dermot Nally, former secretary to the Government, Barnes and Joe Brosnan, former secretary of the Department of Justice, interviewed 25 people and held more than 62 meetings in the course of the investigation.

It also examined allegations that ministers interfered in the prosecutions process as part of a ceasefire deal with the Real IRA after the bombing, and the alleged unlawful and improper conduct of Garda officers.

The Omagh Support and Self Help Group has launched a landmark €14m civil action against the five men they believe are responsible for the atrocity. It is due to be heard before Belfast High Court next January.