Murphy cleared of Omagh conspiracy charge

Colm Murphy walked free from the Special Criminal Court in Dublin today after he was cleared of a conspiracy charge in relation to the 1998 Omagh bomb which killed 29 people and injured more than 300.

Murphy said after being acquitted of the charge: "I am glad to see it's all over."

The three-judge non-jury court ruled that there was no evidence upon which the court could have convicted Murphy after it ruled that all the evidence of 15 garda interviews with Murphy following his arrest in February 1999 was inadmissible.

The court said that the fact that notes of an interview conducted by Detective Garda John Fahy and Detective Garda Liam Donnelly were falsified, combined with the fact that there was no explanation of why this had happened, combined with the fact that this was part of a series of interviews being conducted by three teams of two garda detectives, tainted all of the interviews.

Detective Garda Fahy and Detective Garda Donnelly were charged with forgery and perjury after the original Murphy trial heard that their interview notes had been altered.

Both gardaí were acquitted of the charges and Detective Garda Donnelly has since died.

Murphy's counsel Mr Michael O' Higgins SC had applied to the court after a 20-day trial for a direction to acquit his client because there was not enough evidence to convict him.

Murphy, a 57-year-old native of Co Armagh, with an address at Jordan's Corner, Ravensdale, Co Louth has pleaded not guilty to conspiring with another person to cause an explosion likely to endanger life or cause serious injury to property in the State or elsewhere between August 13 and 16, 1998.

The prosecution had claimed that Murphy lent two mobile phones to a man who was involved in transporting the car bomb from Castleblayney, Co Monaghan to Omagh, where it exploded on August 15, 1998 killing 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins, and injuring more than 300.

The Real IRA later claimed responsibility for the bomb attack, the worst terrorist atrocity in the history of the Troubles in the North.

Murphy was originally convicted of the charge in 2002, but the Court of Criminal Appeal quashed the conviction and ordered a retrial in 2005.

He is the second man to be acquitted in relation to the Omagh atrocity. Sean Hoey, a South Armagh electrician, walked free from Belfast Crown Court in December 2007 after a judge cleared him of all charges related to the bombing and a host of other Real IRA attacks.