IN/1068

Date set for civil retrial of two sued over atrocity

THE civil retrial of two men being sued over the Omagh bomb atrocity will begin in October, a High Court judge has confirmed. Mr Justice Gillen said he was setting aside up to six weeks to hear the case against Colm Murphy, above right, and Seamus Daly, right.
He also set out his intention to deliver a verdict within a fortnight of the new hearing being completed.
The Real IRA bombing killed 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins.
Murphy and Daly are defending an action brought by relatives of some of the victims.
They were ordered to face a retrial after their appeals against being held liable for the bombing were upheld. Two other men found responsible in the initial landmark ruling, convicted Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt and fellow dissident republican Liam Campbell, failed to have the findings against them overturned. They are attempting to take their case to the Supreme Court in London.
Mr Justice Gillen fixed a retrial date for October 3. No-one has been successfully criminally convicted of the bombing which devastated the Co Tyrone market town. In June 2009 McKevitt, a convicted Real IRA leader serving a 20-year jail sentence; Campbell, a farmer from Co Louth fighting extradition to Lithuania over an alleged arms smuggling plot;
Murphy, a Dundalk-based builder and publican; and Daly, from Culavillc, Co Monaghan, were all found liable for the bombing in a civil ruling. Mr Justice Morgan, now Northern Ireland's lord chief justice, ordered them to pay £I.6 million in compensation.
But in July last year three judges in the Court of Appeal upheld the appeals of Murphy and Daly.