Police charge man over Northern Ireland Omagh bombing

CRAIGAVON, Northern Ireland - A man has been charged with murder over the 1998 Omagh bombing which killed 29 people in Northern Ireland's bloodiest attack in 30 years of sectarian violence, his lawyer said.

Electrician Sean Hoey, 35, who is currently in jail facing other matters, is the first person to face murder charges over the incident.

He was formally charged on 61 counts by police before appearing by video link at a routine court remand hearing, defence lawyer Peter Corrigan said.

Corrigan said he wants the 61 new charges dismissed, arguing that to bring them seven years after he was originally questioned over the bombing was an unacceptable delay.

He also said Hoey's chances of a fair trial had been prejudiced.

"We submit that the prosecution has been conducted in a most unacceptable manner. The prosecution have manipulated the process," Corrigan told the court.

Hoey, already charged with possessing explosives, is to appear formally in court next week over the Omagh bombing.

This could pave the way for one of the biggest murder trials in British or Irish history.

Twenty-nine people were killed, among them a woman pregnant with twins, and around 200 were injured when a 225kg car bomb exploded in the market town of Omagh in August 1998.

The only person jailed so far in connection with Omagh, publican Colm Murphy from the Irish Republic, had his conviction quashed by a Dublin court in January. He is facing a retrial.

The attack was carried out by the Real IRA, a small, breakaway faction opposed to the ceasefire called in 1997 by the mainstream Irish republican Army in its campaign to oust Britain from Northern Ireland.

In a landmark civil action, relatives of some of the victims are suing five men they blame for the attack.

- REUTERS