BT/1091

Photo of bombing accused 'stuck out like a sore thumb'
BY SARAH STACK

A PHOTOGRAPH of one of five men accused of carrying out the Omagh bombing stuck out like a sore thumb in an identification album, it was claimed in court yesterday.
A barrister for Seamus Daly told the civil court case that Polaroid images of 11 different men were put in a file alongside a picture of his client in a different format. Dermot Fee QC maintains this was inappropriate.
Daly and five other men are being sued for £14 million by six families affected by the Real IRA (RIRA) blast which ripped through the town on a Saturday afternoon in August 1998.
Alleged RIRA leader Michael McKevitt; Liam Campbell, said to be his number two; Colm Murphy; Seamus McKenna and Daly all deny involvement in the explosion which killed 29 people.
The District Court in Dublin heard allegations that Daly borrowed a mobile phone from Murphy and its signal was traced travelling from south Armagh to Omagh and back on the day of the atrocity. District Court Judge Conal Gibbons was told records showed a call was made from the mobile to Kilkenny man Denis O'Connor. Gardai arrested Mr O'Connor in Kilkenny on February 22, 1999, and drove him to Carrickmacross Station in Co Monaghan.
Detective Sergeant Sean Grennan, of the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, said when he showed the pictures to Mr O'Connor he identified Daly as the man he spoke to on the phone the day of the bombing.
Mr Fee asked the detective if it was appropriate to use 11 similar photographs and one completely different kind of picture of a person that gardai wanted confirmed as a suspect.
"I was doing the best I could," replied Det Sgt Grennan.