FURTHER BLOWS TO OMAGH BOMB PROSECUTION CASE
Further blows to Omagh bomb prosecution case
THE prosecution case against Sean Hoey, who is charged with the 29 murders of those killed by the Omagh bomb, has been damaged yet again with a number of charges expected to be withdrawn.
It is the latest in a series of revelations that has thwarted the prosecution case since the trial opened six weeks ago.
Hoey (36) from Molly Road, Jonesborough in south Armagh faces 58 charges connected to 10 Real IRA bombs, including the attack in Omagh in August 1998. The charges are related to Hoey's alleged involvement in a bomb attack on Banbridge in Co Down just two weeks prior to the Omagh bomb. The defendant was charged with making a bomb warning over the telephone prior to the attack.
VOICE EXPERT
The prosecution barristers have declared that they are no longer relying on the analysis of voice expert Dr Fredricka Holmes who had said last year that a recording of the bomb warning, "was more likely than not" to have been the voice of Hoey.
The trial has already heard of a number of failures to protect forensic evidence in the case and a police admission, that a statement was re-written to "beef-up" evidence. A British army bomb disposal expert has admitted that evidence may have been "forensically altered" after black tape mysteriously appeared on a bomb-timer unit, when it was sent for analysis in England.
TAPE
The court heard the tape had not been on the device when it was originally photographed at the bomb scene or when it had been previously examined in the North. Trial judge Mr Justice Weir described the tape's appearance as "Houdini-like."
Other discrepancies that have come to light during the trial include an admission by a scientist that labels on forensic evidence from one bomb scene appear to have been altered and that a detonator being used as trial evidence had gone missing for five years. Five other bomb-timer units connected to the trail are missing.
Last month a senior police officer Philip Marshall, also admitted he had asked a Scene of
Crime Officer Fiona Cooper to change her statement in relation to the discovery of a mortar bomb at Altmore Forest near Dungannon in 2001. Cooper admitted Marshall asked her to add additional details which she had no memory or notes of. She told the court she could not have written the second statement, as she had been in Zambia at the time it was allegedly written and dated.
FLAW
Yet another flaw in the prosecution case was exposed when Mr Justice Weir refused to accept their expert's assertion that the Omagh bomb and other devices were made by the same bomb maker. The judge said that expert Dennis McAuley's conclusion was based, in part, on guesswork.
Later McAuley conceded that scientists had failed to protect items taken at a bomb scene from potential DNA contamination and admitted there was the "real possibility" of Hoey's DNA being transferred onto the evidence.
The trial which has stumbled from one piece of discredited evidence to another since it opened continues.
THE prosecution case against Sean Hoey, who is charged with the 29 murders of those killed by the Omagh bomb, has been damaged yet again with a number of charges expected to be withdrawn.
It is the latest in a series of revelations that has thwarted the prosecution case since the trial opened six weeks ago.
Hoey (36) from Molly Road, Jonesborough in south Armagh faces 58 charges connected to 10 Real IRA bombs, including the attack in Omagh in August 1998. The charges are related to Hoey's alleged involvement in a bomb attack on Banbridge in Co Down just two weeks prior to the Omagh bomb. The defendant was charged with making a bomb warning over the telephone prior to the attack.
VOICE EXPERT
The prosecution barristers have declared that they are no longer relying on the analysis of voice expert Dr Fredricka Holmes who had said last year that a recording of the bomb warning, "was more likely than not" to have been the voice of Hoey.
The trial has already heard of a number of failures to protect forensic evidence in the case and a police admission, that a statement was re-written to "beef-up" evidence. A British army bomb disposal expert has admitted that evidence may have been "forensically altered" after black tape mysteriously appeared on a bomb-timer unit, when it was sent for analysis in England.
TAPE
The court heard the tape had not been on the device when it was originally photographed at the bomb scene or when it had been previously examined in the North. Trial judge Mr Justice Weir described the tape's appearance as "Houdini-like."
Other discrepancies that have come to light during the trial include an admission by a scientist that labels on forensic evidence from one bomb scene appear to have been altered and that a detonator being used as trial evidence had gone missing for five years. Five other bomb-timer units connected to the trail are missing.
Last month a senior police officer Philip Marshall, also admitted he had asked a Scene of
Crime Officer Fiona Cooper to change her statement in relation to the discovery of a mortar bomb at Altmore Forest near Dungannon in 2001. Cooper admitted Marshall asked her to add additional details which she had no memory or notes of. She told the court she could not have written the second statement, as she had been in Zambia at the time it was allegedly written and dated.
FLAW
Yet another flaw in the prosecution case was exposed when Mr Justice Weir refused to accept their expert's assertion that the Omagh bomb and other devices were made by the same bomb maker. The judge said that expert Dennis McAuley's conclusion was based, in part, on guesswork.
Later McAuley conceded that scientists had failed to protect items taken at a bomb scene from potential DNA contamination and admitted there was the "real possibility" of Hoey's DNA being transferred onto the evidence.
The trial which has stumbled from one piece of discredited evidence to another since it opened continues.
Further Information
Publisher: ULSTER HERALD
Ref: UH/1873
Published Date: 09-Nov-06
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