BT/1140

Omagh relatives hope the long journey ends today
BY LESLEY-ANNE HENRY
lhenry@belfasttelegraph.co.uk

FAMILIES of Omagh bomb victims said they hoped today is "the end of a long journey" as a verdict was due to be delivered on their multi-million pound eight-year civil action.
A ruling on a landmark case being taken against five men believed to have been behind the 1998 Real IRA explosion was due to be delivered to Belfast High Court this morning.
Relatives of six people killed - Geraldine Breslin (43), Aiden Gallagher (21), Esther Gibson (36), Anne McComb (45), Alan Radford (16) and Lorraine Wilson (15) - launched the multi-million pound compensation claim marking the first time that victims of terrorism have ever sued the alleged perpetrators.
The families' legal team headed by Lord Daniel Brennan opened their case last April by describing the bombing as a massacre of the innocents and ended their evidence in March with a declaration that the day of reckoning had arrived for the Real IRA.
Today, Mr Justice Morgan was due to decide on the months of harrowing evidence presented to his court.
In December 2007, south Armagh electrician Sean Hoey walked free from court after being acquitted of 56 charges in connection with the Omagh bomb - including 29 counts of murder.
Now the devastated families believe this civil action - which began in 2001 - is their last hope for justice. The families were 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 Bob Geldof and former boxing champion Barry McGuigan.
The ground-breaking case, for which they raised about £2m and received an £800,000 government grant, heard heartbreaking accounts from the victims' relatives, medics who treated the wounded and dying on the day of the bomb, police detectives, MI5 agents, as well as relatives of some of the suspects. On a number of occasions the court moved to Dublin's Four Courts to take evidence from Garda officers involved in the cross-border police investigation.
However, the chairman of the Omagh Self-Help and Support Group, Michael Gallagher, who lost his son Aiden, said the case was never about the money.
"We are hoping that it will be the end of a particular journey that we started in 2000. But because of our experience of the courts before you are always nervous about the outcome. This was about holding people to account," he said.
"We are glad that at least we are here because there were times along that journey when it was questionable whether we could continue, whether we had the finance to continue, whether both governments would co-operate in the civil action. But in the end things did come together and we were grateful that both the Garda Siochana, serving and retired, and former members of the RUC and members of the PSNI did come forward and were excellent witnesses along with other expert witnesses. So I think from that point of view things worked for us and allowed us to get where we are today.
"It was difficult for all of us because you were there in court listening to other families' trauma and their worst nightmares, their worst experiences and some of those we were hearing for the first time. Some of the families had never spoken publicly. It was a very emotionally draining experience."
The families' solicitor, Jason McCue, said: "Not only do the families await a verdict which may finally bring to task those they believe responsible for the deaths of their loved ones but one that may set a ground-breaking precedent for future victims of terrorism.
"These civil proceedings were the first in the world to be issued against not only the alleged individual perpetrators of a terrorist atrocity but the terrorist organisation itself, the RIRA."