TC/1598

SF chief subpoenaed by Omagh families' lawyers

THE legal team acting on behalf of the victims of the Omagh bombing have summoned Sinn Fein president, Gerry Adams, as a witness to the £10 million civil action due to get underway in the High Court later this year, it has emerged.
And West Tyrone MP, Pat Doherty, is one of a number of others, all alleged members of the Provisional IRA's ruling army council, to have been subpoenaed.
They also include another Westminster MP., Martin McGuinness, along with Brian Gillen and Brian Keenan, although none of the three, nor Mr.
Adams nor Mr. Doherty can be constrained to appear in court.
Mr. Adams has always strongly refuted suggestions that he ever belonged to the Provisional IRA, but the papers served in Belfast claim that he and the other four were all leading members of the organisation when Michael McKevitt broke away to create the Real IRA, which has been
blamed for the August 1998 Omagh town centre atrocity.
It is believed the legal team will seek to prove that all five men attended a number of meetings in the lead-up to McKevitt's resignation from the
Provisionals and his subsequent formation of the Real IRA.
Accordingly, the lawyers believe the five can provide vital evidence about his role within the new organisation, born in the aftermath of alleged IRA meetings in 1996 and 1997.
These are said to be an October 1996 general IRA convention, army council meetings in July and August 1997, an army convention in October 1997, and a further meeting later in the same month at which McKevitt announced his resignation.
The legal team wants to investigate, too, links between senior Sinn Fein officials and McKevitt, 51, who has been named in court documents as a Real IRA member, prior to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.
Also named in court papers as Real IRA members are another 51-year-old, Colm Murphy, and Seamus McKenna, 49, Seamus Daly, 33, and Liam Campbell, 38.
Mr. Victor Barker, whose 12-year-old son, James, was killed in the bombing, insisted that it was important that Mr. Adams be quizzed about his alleged attendance at the meetings which, it is claimed, produced McKevitt's decision to quit the Provisionals.
"Establishing how the Real IRA came into existence is a crucial part of our case, and the evidence of these five men is vital," added Mr. Barker.