Omagh families await verdict in €15.9m damages bid

Omagh bomb relatives will today learn the verdict in their multimillion-pound legal action against those they blame for the killings.

Five men are being sued for up to £14m (€15.9m) by those bereaved in the 1998 Real IRA atrocity.

The relatives launched the landmark civil action in frustration at the failure to secure a successful criminal conviction over the attack in which 29 people died.

It is believed to be the first time anywhere in the world that alleged members of a terrorist organisation have been sued.

Mr Justice Morgan is set to deliver his judgment in Belfast High Court.

Michael McKevitt, an alleged founding member of the dissident republican group, is among those facing the claim for damages.

Another is Co Louth farmer Liam Campbell, who is in custody in the North facing a bid to extradite him to Lithuania to face arms smuggling charges.

Colm Murphy, from Louth, is also named in the action. In 2002 he was found guilty in Dublin’s Special Criminal Court of conspiring to cause the Omagh bomb but his conviction was later quashed.

The other two accused of involvement are Seamus McKenna and Seamus Daly.

The families are also suing the Real IRA as an organisation.

They first launched the action more than eight years ago. The trial began last April and made legal history when it crossed the border to hear evidence in a court in the Republic of Ireland.

The legal bid has cost an estimated £2m (€2.2m), with the families having been backed in their fundraising efforts by former US president Bill Clinton and ex-Northern Ireland secretaries of state Peter Mandelson and Sir Patrick Mayhew, as well as celebrities Bob Geldof and former boxing champion Barry McGuigan.

In December 2007, Sean Hoey, 38, from Jonesborough, South Armagh, was cleared at Belfast Crown Court of murdering the 29 people. He was acquitted of a total of 58 charges, including some not directly linked to the bombing.