I'M NOT TO BLAME FOR THIS SLAUGHTER
I'm not to blame for this slaughter
A LEADING republican denied yesterday that he was behind the Omagh bombing.
Louth businessman Michael McKevitt (49) told a priest he had no hand, act or part in it.
He made the denial after his partner, Bernadette Sands, sister of dead hunger striker Bobby Sands, telephoned the priest saying she feared for her children.
Father Desmond Campbell, Blackrock, Co Louth, said he knew the McKevitt family and believed the call was made after he referred at Mass to the chief suspect for the bombing being widely believed to be from the parish.
Said Fr Campbell: "It was a despairing thing when they rang me. She broke down and cried.''
He said: "She said we are terribly upset by what is taking place and she started to cry. She said it is my children, I am frightened out of my life that they will do something to my three children because they (local people) are supposed to be converging here on the home and I am worried sick about my three children.''
The priest said Ms Sands was so upset that Michael McKevitt, her partner of many years, then spoke to him.
Fr Campbell said: "Then he came on and it was he who made the statement to me about the situation.
"He was tougher about it than she would have been, he didn't break down or anything like that. What he did say, and I find it hard to disbelieve him I won't say I believe him he said I had neither hand, act nor part in this thing.
"He said the first that he knew anything about it whatsoever was when he was listening to the news on Saturday evening and it came on. That was the first he knew about this bomb that went off in Omagh and he had nothing whatsoever to do with it.''
The priest said Mr McKevitt declared: "At a personal level you know that I am a republican but I had nothing whatsoever to do with it nor did I know anything was going to happen and I want to make that very, very clear.
"They are going to march on the house apparently and my partner is very upset about it and the children but I want you to know I had nothing whatsoever to do with this.''
However the couple did not ask him to go public but the priest felt it was his duty to ring the gardai and "tell them in case they were pursuing that line for what it was worth''.
Bernadette Sands is the most prominent figure in the 32-County Sovereignty Movement and sister of Bobby Sands, the IRA hunger striker who died in 1981.
The group, which was formed after Mr McKevitt and a woman resigned from the IRA "executive'' last October, is ostensibly a political pressure group which opposes Sinn Fein's participation in a "new Stormont''.
But on Sunday, Ronnie Flanagan, the RUC chief constable, said that the movement probably perpetrated the Omagh outrage.
In 1975 Mr McKevitt was shot in both legs by members of the Official IRA during a republican feud and refused to give any information about his attackers.
Three months ago he was named in a Dublin court as having been arrested with Thomas "Slab'' Murphy in Co Monaghan in 1988 on suspicion of IRA membership.
A LEADING republican denied yesterday that he was behind the Omagh bombing.
Louth businessman Michael McKevitt (49) told a priest he had no hand, act or part in it.
He made the denial after his partner, Bernadette Sands, sister of dead hunger striker Bobby Sands, telephoned the priest saying she feared for her children.
Father Desmond Campbell, Blackrock, Co Louth, said he knew the McKevitt family and believed the call was made after he referred at Mass to the chief suspect for the bombing being widely believed to be from the parish.
Said Fr Campbell: "It was a despairing thing when they rang me. She broke down and cried.''
He said: "She said we are terribly upset by what is taking place and she started to cry. She said it is my children, I am frightened out of my life that they will do something to my three children because they (local people) are supposed to be converging here on the home and I am worried sick about my three children.''
The priest said Ms Sands was so upset that Michael McKevitt, her partner of many years, then spoke to him.
Fr Campbell said: "Then he came on and it was he who made the statement to me about the situation.
"He was tougher about it than she would have been, he didn't break down or anything like that. What he did say, and I find it hard to disbelieve him I won't say I believe him he said I had neither hand, act nor part in this thing.
"He said the first that he knew anything about it whatsoever was when he was listening to the news on Saturday evening and it came on. That was the first he knew about this bomb that went off in Omagh and he had nothing whatsoever to do with it.''
The priest said Mr McKevitt declared: "At a personal level you know that I am a republican but I had nothing whatsoever to do with it nor did I know anything was going to happen and I want to make that very, very clear.
"They are going to march on the house apparently and my partner is very upset about it and the children but I want you to know I had nothing whatsoever to do with this.''
However the couple did not ask him to go public but the priest felt it was his duty to ring the gardai and "tell them in case they were pursuing that line for what it was worth''.
Bernadette Sands is the most prominent figure in the 32-County Sovereignty Movement and sister of Bobby Sands, the IRA hunger striker who died in 1981.
The group, which was formed after Mr McKevitt and a woman resigned from the IRA "executive'' last October, is ostensibly a political pressure group which opposes Sinn Fein's participation in a "new Stormont''.
But on Sunday, Ronnie Flanagan, the RUC chief constable, said that the movement probably perpetrated the Omagh outrage.
In 1975 Mr McKevitt was shot in both legs by members of the Official IRA during a republican feud and refused to give any information about his attackers.
Three months ago he was named in a Dublin court as having been arrested with Thomas "Slab'' Murphy in Co Monaghan in 1988 on suspicion of IRA membership.
Further Information
Publisher: IRISH INDEPENDENT
Ref: II/200
Published Date: 19-Aug-98
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