A man accused of being involved in the Omagh bombing that killed 29 people will be sent for trial over the atrocity, it has been confirmed .
Seamus Daly was told on Tuesday that his trial would go ahead with mobile phone evidence forming the centrepiece of the crown’s case against him.
No one has ever been convicted for the 1998 atrocity – the single biggest massacre of the Northern Ireland Troubles.
Daly, 44, a bricklayer from County Monaghan in the Irish Republic, has been in custody since April last year. He denies all the charges against him.
Daly was one of five men named as responsible for the bombing of the Co Tyrone market town in a BBC Panorama programme, Who bombed Omagh? He is also one of four men ordered to pay £1m in damages to the families of the Omagh victims in a landmark civil case in Belfast high court.
A crown lawyer told Omagh magistrates court a substantial amount of evidence connected to mobile phone activity had been requested from the authorities in the Irish Republic. This material, the lawyer said, would be available in six weeks. He said “other more complex material”, which was subject to legal issues, may also be available.
The crown lawyer added that the director of public prosecutions had agreed for the case against Daly to go ahead and that he would face 29 murder counts. He would also face charges relating to a Real IRA explosion in Lisburn, County Antrim, in the same year, the barrister said.
But defence lawyer Peter Corrigan said the crown had no new evidence since 1999 and his client had been living openly in Jonesborough in Northern Ireland yet now faced “the biggest murder trial in British criminal history”.
Daly, who appeared via videolink from prison for the hearing, was remanded in custody until 10 March.
Relatives of the Omagh victims were in court to hear the case. They included Michael Gallagher, a veteran campaigner for the families whose son Aidan was killed in the atrocity.
After the hearing Gallagher warned that previous investigations and criminal prosecutions had failed to put anyone behind bars for the Omagh bomb.
“We of course support the Police Service of Northern Ireland and Garda in their efforts to bring people to account for what happened at Omagh but they have had a very poor record,” he said.
