Omagh case appeal centres on MI5 agent's credibility

[Magda Hassan]

Omagh case appeal centres on MI5 agent's credibility

Four republicans are appealing against a civil ruling that found them responsible for the Omagh attack in 1998

• Henry McDonald in Belfast
  
• guardian.co.uk, Monday 10 January 2011 13.19 GMT Omagh bomb victims' relatives outside Belfast high court after winning compensation in 2009. Photograph: Peter Muhly/AFP/Getty Images An MI5 agent's credibility is at the centre of an appeal by four republicans accused of being behind the Omagh bomb atrocity, a court heard today.
  David Rupert infiltrated the Real IRA and provided evidence against the four men, who are appealing against a historic civil case judgment that held them liable for the massacre.
  His intelligence for MI5 was used in the civil action against the Real IRA founder Michael McKevitt and three other men Liam Campbell, Colm Murphy and Seamus Daly.
  They were found to be responsible for the terrorist attack by a judge in a landmark civil case brought by victims' families at Belfast high court in June 2009. The judge recommended that they pay £1.6m in compensation to the victims' families.
  All four who were named in court as leading Real IRA activists have started their appeal against that judgment in the court of appeal in Belfast.
  Serious doubts were raised by the four men's legal team today in opening statements about the credibility of the intelligence reports.
  Rupert, an American trucker who posed as a gunrunner for the Real IRA, did not give evidence himself in the original civil case. The lawyers also pointed to intelligence material that was not produced in the original civil action in their attempt to have the ruling overturned.
  Opening the appeal case, McKevitt's barrister, Michael O'Higgins, said objective evidence showed Rupert was a liar. "Mr Rupert is a pathological liar and a confidence trickster, and a man who it was very strongly submitted [at the civil case], a submission based on forensic investigation, engaged in serial perjury in the course of giving his evidence in the Dublin trial," he said.
  O'Higgins said the fact that Rupert had not given evidence in the civil case had denied McKevitt an opportunity to cross-examine the witness.
  Among those attending the opening day of the appeal were Stanley McCombe, whose wife was killed in the bombing.
  The Omagh families took their civil action to the high court in Belfast after the police failed to secure a criminal conviction over the 1998 Real IRA bombing of the Co Tyrone town. They sued five men and the Real IRA as an organisation for up to £14m in a case which made legal history when it sat to hear evidence in both Belfast and Dublin.
  The Omagh bomb killed 29 people and injured dozens more. It was the single biggest atrocity of the Northern Ireland Troubles.
  The campaign by the 12 Omagh relatives to take the civil action won the support of Bill Clinton, the former Northern Ireland secretaries Peter Mandelson and Sir Patrick Mayhew, the musician Bob Geldof and the boxing champion Barry McGuigan.
  The relatives are also appealing against part of the June 2009 judgment in the court of appeal today.
  Michael Gallagher, whose son Aiden died in the car bomb attack, said the families' appeal against the compensation case would be heard alongside the appeal by the four dissident republicans challenging the findings of liability.
  Gallagher said: "We are appealing the amount that was awarded.
  "We were awarded compensation but believed the court should have awarded exemplary damages."
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jan/10...-mi5-agent