Omagh Bereaved Face Dissident Court Appeal

Four people will begin a court appeal today after they were successfully sued by families bereaved in the bloody Omagh bombing in 1998.

The four dissident republicans, Michael McKevitt, Seamus Daly, Liam Campbell and Colm Murphy were found liable for the 1998 bombing but are to challenge the judgment.

Relatives who lost loved ones in the attack are also appealing against the £1.6m in compensation recommended at the conclusion of their historic civil action in June 2009.

The Real IRA's bombing in the Co Tyrone town on August 15 killed 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins. More than 200 were injured in the car bomb blast. No-one has ever been successfully convicted of the Omagh bombing, with the only man jailed in connection with the attack, 57-year-old Co Louth builder Colm Murphy, cleared after a retrial in Dublin.

In December 2007, Sean Hoey, 38, from Jonesborough, South Armagh, was cleared at Belfast Crown Court of murdering the 29 people. He was acquitted of 58 charges, including some not directly linked to the bombing.

The latest legal challenge over the case is set to begin at the Court of Appeal in Belfast's Royal Courts of Justice and could last up to two weeks.

The families' ground-breaking multi-million pound civil action was described by them as a bid to bring as much information into the public domain as possible and it was the first time a civil action had been brought in a case of its kind, but came at high cost - an estimated £2m in legal fees.

(BMcC/GK)