BOMBERS 'AWARE' ATTACK WOULD KILL
Bombers 'aware' attack would kill
BY ALAN ERWIN AND IAN GRAHAM, PA
ALLEGED Omagh mass murderer Sean Hoey was "fully aware" the terrorist bomb plot against the town would result in deaths, a court heard yesterday.
As the electrician went on trial accused of massacring 29 people, prosecutors claimed they had enough DNA and forensic evidence, and expert voice analysis, to convict him of the outrage and a series of other strikes on civilian, police and army targets.
Hoey, 37, sat impassive in the dock at Belfast Crown Court, flanked by two prison wardens, as Crown QC Gordon Kerr accused him of being at the heart of the worst single atrocity in 30 years of violence in Northern Ireland.
Mr Kerr said: "He was fully aware that the persons concerned were placing explosives and had an active role in the preparation of the devices.
"The evidence will suggest that he contemplated the use of the devices in such a way that injury up to and including death would occur, and agreed to that.
"In the case of Omagh, it will be submitted that those involved in placing a device in a busy public street at a prime shopping time were aware and must have known that an explosion in those circumstances would kill or at least seriously injure those in the vicinity of the explosion.
"It will be submitted that in this case an analysis of the warnings given when compared to other warnings using the same code word suggests that the warnings were not and could not have been meant to be effective.
"In those circumstances the prosecution case is that those responsible at law for the bomb in Omagh should properly be found guilty of murder in relation to the persons who were killed on August 15,1998."
Relatives of some of those killed in the Real IRA attack were in the public gallery as the trial, which is expected to last for three months, got under way.
Others had gathered 70 miles away in Omagh where a close circuit video-link facility has been set up for the duration of the trial which is expected to last three months.
They had been frustrated earlier this month when the case was adjourned because senior defence counsel Orlando Pownall was too unwell to proceed.
But yesterday, the QC assured Judge Mr Justice Weir he was ready to take the case.
At one stage the names and ages of all those killed were read out. Hoey, of Molly Road, Jonesborough, south Armagh, showed no emotion as the victims were listed.
They included three generations of the same Co Tyrone family - an 18-month-old girl, her mother who was pregnant with twins and a 66-year-old grandmother.
He denies a total of 58 charges, which the prosecution alleges were part of a violent campaign waged by dissident republicans before and after the Good Friday peace deal was signed in April 1998.
All but two of the bomb attacks in the case used Mark 19 timer power units (TPU), Mr Kerr told the court. From that it can be concluded, he claimed, that the devices were all built by the same person.
"The prosecution will say that both DNA evidence and fibre evidence connecting the defendant to this series of attacks will show his involvement in them and that the totality of the evidence will persuade the court of his criminal involvement in the connected series of explosions," Mr Kerr said.
At 2.29pm on the day of the Omagh attack, 35 minutes before the explosion, a telephone warning said a 500lb car bomb had been placed outside the town's courthouse and would explode in 30 minutes.
But this was followed within minutes by two further warnings giving conflicting information, Mr Kerr said.
He said the court would hear from police officers sent to evacuate shoppers away from the courthouse.
They were urged to move down Market Street where the bomb exploded.
Mr Kerr also detailed other attacks Hoey is allegedly linked to in the months before the carnage.
The Mark 19 TPU was the common denominator, the court heard.
A mortar attack on the Crossmaglen security force base on March 24,1998, allegedly started this series of attacks.
On the same day there was a similar strike on the joint Army and police base at Forkhill a few miles away. One device exploded in the base, but there were no injuries.
On April 3, a hoax bomb was found by a railway worker on the Belfast to Dublin line at Redbridge near Newry.
And on April 13 a car bomb was planted at Market Street in Lisburn.
Less than a month later, on May 9,1998, a mortar bomb attack was launched on the RUC station in Bessbrook without causing any injuries.
In a further attack, a white Toyota with a 500lb bomb inside was planted close to the police station on the Newry Road in Armagh on May 19.
Five days later Northern Ireland Railways staff reported two people acting suspiciously under a railway bridge at Finaghy Halt in Belfast.
The area was being evacuated when the device partially exploded, causing minor damage to the line.
Next, on July 10, police discovered a trailer with a 1,400lb bomb made in Blackwatertown, Armagh.
The same month a 500lb car bomb was defused outside the Newry courthouse. And days later a mortar attack was launched on the town's police station, again without causing any injuries.
On August 1 a car bomb exploded in Banbridge as police were evacuating the area. It caused a number of minor injuries.
But a fortnight later, Mr Kerr claimed, the Omagh telephone warnings were wrong and so lacking in detail to be meaningless.
He said: "If the bombers genuinely wished to avoid the certain deaths and injuries which they knew would occur by placing a large car bomb on a busy shopping street they could easily have given a description of the vehicle and an accurate description of its location as had been done before.
"In fact they did neither."
DNA matches with Hoey were found on a number of the devices he is charged in connection with.
These included the car bomb in Lisburn, Omagh police station and the bomb at Blackwatertown.
Some of the swabs were extremely strong, the court heard.
"The extent of the DNA findings is such as to exclude the reasonable possibility that the findings can be explained in an innocent way," Mr Kerr said.
"The prosecution say that the combination of the evidence, DNA plus fibre evidence, will establish a clear connection between the link devices... and the defendant Hoey who was involved in their construction in circumstances which make it clear that he was an essential part of the conspiracy to cause the explosions."
A voice analyst brought in to compare recorded warnings about the car bomb in Banbridge and Hoey's voice also concluded they were more likely than not to be the same, Mr Kerr added.
The prosecutor said when police went to arrest Hoey at his home in September 2003, they saw someone running away from the premises.
"A search resulted in the defendant being found in an area of bushes," the lawyer said.
"He was challenged and came out from the bushes with a mobile phone in his hand."
Later, a scenes of crime officer, an Army major and two police constables were called to give evidence.
Mr Pownall cross-examined several of the witnesses about the incorrect labelling of exhibits recovered after the Crossmaglen attack. The trial was adjourned until today.
The following 29 people were killed in the car bomb attack:
James Barker, 12, Buncrana
Geraldine Breslin, 43, Omagh
Deborah Cartwright, 20, Omagh
Gareth Conway, 18, Carrickmore
Brenda Devine, 20 months, Donemana
Oran Doherty, 8, Buncrana
Aiden Gallagher, 21, Omagh
Esther Gibson, 36, Beragh, Co Tyrone
Mary Grimes, 65, Beragh, Co Tyrone
Her daughter, Avril Monaghan, 30, (pregnant with twins), Aughadarna, Co Tyrone
Mrs Monaghan's daughter Maura, 18 months, Aughadarna, Co Tyrone
Olive Hawkes, 60, Omagh
Julia Hughes, 21, Omagh
Brenda Logue, 17, Carrickmore
Jolene Marlow, 17, Omagh
Anne McCombe, 48, Omagh
Brian McCrory, 54, Omagh
Samantha McFarland, 17, Omagh
Sean McLaughlin, 12, Buncrana
Alan Radford, 16, Omagh
Ricio Abad Ramos, 23, Madrid, Spain
Fernando Blasco Baselga, 12, Madrid, Spain
Elizabeth Rush, 57, Omagh
Veda Short, 46, Gortaclare, Co Tyrone
Philomena Skelton, 49, Drumquin
Fred White, 60, Omagh
His son Brien White, 26, Omagh
Lorraine Wilson, 15, Omagh
Sean McGrath, 61, Omagh, died three weeks after the bombing
BY ALAN ERWIN AND IAN GRAHAM, PA
ALLEGED Omagh mass murderer Sean Hoey was "fully aware" the terrorist bomb plot against the town would result in deaths, a court heard yesterday.
As the electrician went on trial accused of massacring 29 people, prosecutors claimed they had enough DNA and forensic evidence, and expert voice analysis, to convict him of the outrage and a series of other strikes on civilian, police and army targets.
Hoey, 37, sat impassive in the dock at Belfast Crown Court, flanked by two prison wardens, as Crown QC Gordon Kerr accused him of being at the heart of the worst single atrocity in 30 years of violence in Northern Ireland.
Mr Kerr said: "He was fully aware that the persons concerned were placing explosives and had an active role in the preparation of the devices.
"The evidence will suggest that he contemplated the use of the devices in such a way that injury up to and including death would occur, and agreed to that.
"In the case of Omagh, it will be submitted that those involved in placing a device in a busy public street at a prime shopping time were aware and must have known that an explosion in those circumstances would kill or at least seriously injure those in the vicinity of the explosion.
"It will be submitted that in this case an analysis of the warnings given when compared to other warnings using the same code word suggests that the warnings were not and could not have been meant to be effective.
"In those circumstances the prosecution case is that those responsible at law for the bomb in Omagh should properly be found guilty of murder in relation to the persons who were killed on August 15,1998."
Relatives of some of those killed in the Real IRA attack were in the public gallery as the trial, which is expected to last for three months, got under way.
Others had gathered 70 miles away in Omagh where a close circuit video-link facility has been set up for the duration of the trial which is expected to last three months.
They had been frustrated earlier this month when the case was adjourned because senior defence counsel Orlando Pownall was too unwell to proceed.
But yesterday, the QC assured Judge Mr Justice Weir he was ready to take the case.
At one stage the names and ages of all those killed were read out. Hoey, of Molly Road, Jonesborough, south Armagh, showed no emotion as the victims were listed.
They included three generations of the same Co Tyrone family - an 18-month-old girl, her mother who was pregnant with twins and a 66-year-old grandmother.
He denies a total of 58 charges, which the prosecution alleges were part of a violent campaign waged by dissident republicans before and after the Good Friday peace deal was signed in April 1998.
All but two of the bomb attacks in the case used Mark 19 timer power units (TPU), Mr Kerr told the court. From that it can be concluded, he claimed, that the devices were all built by the same person.
"The prosecution will say that both DNA evidence and fibre evidence connecting the defendant to this series of attacks will show his involvement in them and that the totality of the evidence will persuade the court of his criminal involvement in the connected series of explosions," Mr Kerr said.
At 2.29pm on the day of the Omagh attack, 35 minutes before the explosion, a telephone warning said a 500lb car bomb had been placed outside the town's courthouse and would explode in 30 minutes.
But this was followed within minutes by two further warnings giving conflicting information, Mr Kerr said.
He said the court would hear from police officers sent to evacuate shoppers away from the courthouse.
They were urged to move down Market Street where the bomb exploded.
Mr Kerr also detailed other attacks Hoey is allegedly linked to in the months before the carnage.
The Mark 19 TPU was the common denominator, the court heard.
A mortar attack on the Crossmaglen security force base on March 24,1998, allegedly started this series of attacks.
On the same day there was a similar strike on the joint Army and police base at Forkhill a few miles away. One device exploded in the base, but there were no injuries.
On April 3, a hoax bomb was found by a railway worker on the Belfast to Dublin line at Redbridge near Newry.
And on April 13 a car bomb was planted at Market Street in Lisburn.
Less than a month later, on May 9,1998, a mortar bomb attack was launched on the RUC station in Bessbrook without causing any injuries.
In a further attack, a white Toyota with a 500lb bomb inside was planted close to the police station on the Newry Road in Armagh on May 19.
Five days later Northern Ireland Railways staff reported two people acting suspiciously under a railway bridge at Finaghy Halt in Belfast.
The area was being evacuated when the device partially exploded, causing minor damage to the line.
Next, on July 10, police discovered a trailer with a 1,400lb bomb made in Blackwatertown, Armagh.
The same month a 500lb car bomb was defused outside the Newry courthouse. And days later a mortar attack was launched on the town's police station, again without causing any injuries.
On August 1 a car bomb exploded in Banbridge as police were evacuating the area. It caused a number of minor injuries.
But a fortnight later, Mr Kerr claimed, the Omagh telephone warnings were wrong and so lacking in detail to be meaningless.
He said: "If the bombers genuinely wished to avoid the certain deaths and injuries which they knew would occur by placing a large car bomb on a busy shopping street they could easily have given a description of the vehicle and an accurate description of its location as had been done before.
"In fact they did neither."
DNA matches with Hoey were found on a number of the devices he is charged in connection with.
These included the car bomb in Lisburn, Omagh police station and the bomb at Blackwatertown.
Some of the swabs were extremely strong, the court heard.
"The extent of the DNA findings is such as to exclude the reasonable possibility that the findings can be explained in an innocent way," Mr Kerr said.
"The prosecution say that the combination of the evidence, DNA plus fibre evidence, will establish a clear connection between the link devices... and the defendant Hoey who was involved in their construction in circumstances which make it clear that he was an essential part of the conspiracy to cause the explosions."
A voice analyst brought in to compare recorded warnings about the car bomb in Banbridge and Hoey's voice also concluded they were more likely than not to be the same, Mr Kerr added.
The prosecutor said when police went to arrest Hoey at his home in September 2003, they saw someone running away from the premises.
"A search resulted in the defendant being found in an area of bushes," the lawyer said.
"He was challenged and came out from the bushes with a mobile phone in his hand."
Later, a scenes of crime officer, an Army major and two police constables were called to give evidence.
Mr Pownall cross-examined several of the witnesses about the incorrect labelling of exhibits recovered after the Crossmaglen attack. The trial was adjourned until today.
The following 29 people were killed in the car bomb attack:
James Barker, 12, Buncrana
Geraldine Breslin, 43, Omagh
Deborah Cartwright, 20, Omagh
Gareth Conway, 18, Carrickmore
Brenda Devine, 20 months, Donemana
Oran Doherty, 8, Buncrana
Aiden Gallagher, 21, Omagh
Esther Gibson, 36, Beragh, Co Tyrone
Mary Grimes, 65, Beragh, Co Tyrone
Her daughter, Avril Monaghan, 30, (pregnant with twins), Aughadarna, Co Tyrone
Mrs Monaghan's daughter Maura, 18 months, Aughadarna, Co Tyrone
Olive Hawkes, 60, Omagh
Julia Hughes, 21, Omagh
Brenda Logue, 17, Carrickmore
Jolene Marlow, 17, Omagh
Anne McCombe, 48, Omagh
Brian McCrory, 54, Omagh
Samantha McFarland, 17, Omagh
Sean McLaughlin, 12, Buncrana
Alan Radford, 16, Omagh
Ricio Abad Ramos, 23, Madrid, Spain
Fernando Blasco Baselga, 12, Madrid, Spain
Elizabeth Rush, 57, Omagh
Veda Short, 46, Gortaclare, Co Tyrone
Philomena Skelton, 49, Drumquin
Fred White, 60, Omagh
His son Brien White, 26, Omagh
Lorraine Wilson, 15, Omagh
Sean McGrath, 61, Omagh, died three weeks after the bombing
Further Information
Publisher: NEWS LETTER
Ref: NL/664
Published Date: 26-Sep-06
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