Unfinished business - Too many festering suspicions

AFTER a decade the terrible emptiness and heartbreak caused by the troubles’ most appalling atrocity are as real as they were the summer’s day they were inflicted.

The carnage, in Omagh on August 15, 1998, took 31 lives and left marks that are still troubling today. A recent manifestation of that pain was seen just last month when some victims’ families felt unable to attend official ceremonies to mark the murders.

That pain will be exacerbated by tonight’s BBC Panorama programme, which will claim that British intelligence recorded the Real IRA bombers’ phone calls as they drove into the Tyrone town on the day of the attack. The allegations have led to renewed calls for an inquiry into the bombing and police investigations.