TM/195

YOU MUST BE JOKING
By JILLY BEATTIE and ALAN ERWIN

Man quizzed over Omagh sues police for £15k trauma
A MAN quizzed over the Omagh bombing has demanded £15,000 compensation claiming police showed him traumatising pictures of the carnage.
Declan McComish, 34, from Jonesboro, Co Armagh, said he was left upset by the pictures but was offered no counselling. McComish was not charged in connection with the atrocity that killed 29 people and unborn twins in August 1998.
However, he was convicted in 1996 of assisting the killers of postal worker Frank Kerr and helping in an IRA post office robbery.
McComish, who was in jail when Omagh was attacked, was released early from the Maze Prison under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.
He was among hundreds of republicans questioned by detectives months after the 500lb ripped through the Co Tyrone town.
Last night shocked relatives of the Omagh dead said his compensation claim, made several months ago, was sickening.
And they urged Government ministers to resist a payout.
Michael Gallagher, whose son Aidan, 21, died in the bomb, said Security Minister Jane Kennedy should remember victims' families were offered just £7,000 compensation for their loss.
He added: "I don't care that he hasn't been charged in connection with the Omagh bomb.
"Innocence is no defence for this disgusting claim. He should be ashamed of himself.
"I had to go and look at what was left of the son I loved and yet the Government said I wasn't traumatised."
It is understood McComish is a former Provisional IRA member who later turned against the Sinn Fein leadership of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness.
His claim against the police was at an advanced stage before Ms Kennedy was alerted by the Omagh families.