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McKevitt admitted he was 20 per cent to blame for Omagh bombing
By NIALL MOONAN

DOUBLE AGENT RUPERT TELLS TRIA LOF TERROR CONFESSION BY 'REAL IRA' CHIEF
SUPERGRASS David Rupert yesterday claimed terror suspect Michael McKevitt admitted 20 per cent responsibility for the Omagh bombing.
The alleged Real IRA chief was also "horribly upset" at the August 1998 blast, which killed 29 people and unborn twins in the worst single atrocity of the Troubles.
American double agent Rupert's evidence in the Special Criminal Court stemmed from his first meeting with McKevitt at the Four Seasons Hotel in Monaghan during the autumn of 1999.
McKevitt, from Dundalk, Co Louth denies membership of and directing the Real IRA.
Rupert, who was hired by the FBI and British security forces to infiltrate the group, said McKevitt told him the Real IRA had built the bomb and provided the car - but it had been given to the Continuity IRA to deliver.
McKevitt told him the Real IRA was claiming 20 per cent responsibility for Omagh and placing the remainder of the blame with its republican rivals.
Rupert, 51, said: "McKevitt was horribly upset at the nature of what happened in Omagh.
"The bomb was to be placed where there was no parking.
"But it was moved to a place where there was and that's not where the warning was given for. That created the atrocity."
As relatives of those murdered in the blast watched from the public gallery, Rupert claimed McKevitt spoke about training and swearing in new members to the Real IRA.
The New York-born spy said the bomb was a black mark to even the most hardcore of republicans and had posed problems trying to raise funds in America.
But now the Real IRA had "licked their wounds and gotten by Omagh".
At the Sunday afternoon meeting. Rupert said he hit it off with McKevitt straight away, who appeared to be the boss despite talking of not wanting the role.
Rupert claimed: "It went real smooth. I liked McKevitt, he was pretty personable. There are people I don't like up front and people I do, and I liked him. I felt this was mutual.
"His position was not on the army council. He didn't want this to become known as his army. But he was the man I was dealing with in charge of this group. I took it that he was the man in charge."
Rupert, hired as a spy after he befriended top republicans during more than 25 trips to Ireland, was aware of a specific command structure, according to the FBI agent.
He was told to report first to McKevitt followed by two other close associates.
It was claimed McKevitt also said there would be a shadow army council in case members of the first council were ever arrested.
The new terror group, Rupert said, was planning1 a "campaign against the Brits' and in England", which included military and financial targets. The court heard how McKevitt claimed he had taken 98 per cent of CIRA members, all of the Real IRA, along with some INLA and Provos, into the new terror network.
Rupert's role within the group was to be in computers as McKevitt wanted to use cyber terrorism because car bombs were "off the agenda" after Omagh.
McKevitt also asked Rupert to discover if Republican Sinn Fein would become the political wing of the Real IRA.
But Joe O'Neill, one of Rupert's republican friends, had told him, "over my dead body". Earlier, the court had heard how O'Neill asked Rupert to smuggle Semtex to Ireland inside teddy bears.
He was also asked to bring in bomb-making equipment hidden in skipping ropes and radios and to put by empty kegs of beer in the pub he ran for use in Real IRA explosions.
Rupert said he found it all "extremely upsetting".
Described as "The Asset" in his contract with the FBI, Rupert was to be paid $2,500 a month by the US agency for supplying information to his handlers.
In his second day in the witness box, he told how, with $8,500 from the FBI, he leased the Drowes Bar in Tullaghan, Co Leitrim, to increase his contact with top republicans.
One of them, O'Neill, whom he described as a "right-wing republican", broached the subject of bringing Semtex and detonators to Ireland in 1997.
Rupert said: "I'd been making trips back and forth across the Atlantic and wondered how many fools were putting this stuff in luggage on the planes I was travelling on."
He also said that in republican circles, hand movements were often used instead of words such as bomb.
Speaking of the kegs, Rupert stretched out his right hand and said: "This was Joe's language for bomb. The kegs were to be used for bomb casings.
"I separated them for him and put them into one of the back sheds. I arranged for a steel scrapper to take the rest of them away.
"The beer kegs under my control were to end up in a bomb somewhere."
Rupert said he wrote down as many identifying details from the kegs as he could and passed them on to his handlers so they could be traced if ever used in explosions.
In the mid-1990s British security forces became more interested in the Continuity IRA and recruited him.
Rupert also gave information to gardai including senior officer Dermot Jennings.
In 1996, he asked Garda Jennings if he was to get any money.
He was told: "No, we don't do that." But he was offered a mileage money for meetings.
Rupert told the court: "I was taken aback by this. Depending on the mileage rate, I might be looking at a £10 note and that's not what I had in mind."
The trial continues.