Omagh judgments - Justice is done at last

IT may have taken over a decade but at last justice of a sort has been done.

Yesterday, after years of struggle that would have broken the resolve of many, relatives of the Omagh bomb victims won a landmark civil action against four men they blamed for the atrocity in which 29 people died.

Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt and three other man – Liam Campbell, Colm Murphy and Seamus Daly – were found responsible for the slaughter in the Tyrone town nearly 11 years ago. McKevitt is serving a 20-year sentence in this country, Campbell awaits extradition to Lithuania on arms smuggling charges.

The fact that the judgments were reached after a process that included court hearings in the Republic and Northern Ireland is significant and confirms again that those who imagine that a mandate for violent Republicanism or Loyalism exists are utterly wrong.