NO ESCAPING THE ISSUE OF FABRICATED GARDA NOTES:
“The criticisms of the conduct of a number of gardaí by the judges at the original trial in the Special Criminal Court in 2002 were among the most serious ever to have been levelled against members of the force.” (Pat Rabbitte: Labour TD).
THE ACQUITTAL of Colm Murphy on charges of conspiracy in connection with the Omagh bombing brings to an end a number of unsuccessful attempts to mount prosecutions regarding the atrocity.
The three-judge Special Criminal Court, presided over by Mr Justice Butler, ruled there was no evidence upon which the court could have convicted Murphy after it found that all the evidence of 15 Garda interviews with Murphy following his arrest in February 1999 was inadmissible.
The court ruled that the falsification of Garda interview notes which emerged at the original trial in 2002 had “tainted” all the Garda interviews, and Murphy must be given the benefit of the doubt.
Murphy said yesterday after being acquitted: “I am glad to see it’s all over. Find out who was behind it – MI5 agents setting people up.”
No one has been convicted of the murder of the 29 people who died in Omagh on August 15th, 1998, or held to account for the injuries suffered by more than 200 people in the bombing, which was admitted by the Real IRA.
Relatives of the bomb victims yesterday expressed their frustration that there have been no sustainable criminal convictions over the bombing.
Michael Gallagher, whose son Aidan was killed in the bombing, again called for a cross-Border inquiry. “The relatives feel it is now time for the two governments to co-operate and pursue this inquiry,” he said. “It would seem that on both sides of the Border the criminal justice systems are not able to hold people to account,” he added.
In 2004, Liam Campbell was jailed for membership of the Real IRA, and Michael McKevitt is serving a 20-year sentence for IRA membership and directing terrorism – an offence introduced in legislation passed in the aftermath of the bombing – but not for an act directly related to the bombing.
The only person charged in the North in connection with the bombing, Seán Hoey, was acquitted in December 2007, with a stinging rebuke from the presiding judge to two police officers involved in the investigation. Last year, however, in a civil trial for damages, 12 relatives of those who died won £1.6 million in damages against Colm Murphy, Michael McKevitt, Liam Campbell and Séamus Daly.
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said: “While getting a successful prosecution at this stage will be very difficult, I would urge the security services on both sides of the Border to continue to co-operate on this case.” The Labour Party’s spokesman on justice, Pat Rabbitte, described the outcome as a “bitter disappointment” to those who were injured or who lost relatives in the bombing. “The criticisms of the conduct of a number of gardaí by the judges at the original trial in the Special Criminal Court in 2002 were among the most serious ever to have been levelled against members of the force,” he added.
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BACKGROUND:
The Omagh bombing joins a long list of atrocities for which no one has been convicted, CAROL COULTER Legal Affairs Editor. The IRISH TIMES:
THE ISSUE of falsified Garda notes has dogged both trials of Colm Murphy in connection with the Omagh bombing. “There is no evidence before the court upon which a jury, properly charged, could convict the accused.” With these words Mr Justice Butler, presiding over the three-judge Special Criminal Court, directed that Colm Murphy should be acquitted of the charge of conspiracy to cause an explosion in Omagh in August 1998.
The sole evidence before the court connecting him to the Omagh bombing was that he had admitted in an interview with gardaí that he knew a phone he had lent to another man would be used to move bombs in Northern Ireland “to bomb targets”.
The judges found that this interview, and all the other interviews conducted by gardaí while Murphy was in detention, were not admissible because the notes of those conducted by two of the six interviewing gardaí had already been found to have been falsified.
This means that to date no one has been convicted in connection with the Omagh bombing, in which 29 people died and 200 were seriously injured, and it is increasingly unlikely anyone will be. Michael McKevitt is serving a 20-year sentence for IRA membership and directing terrorism, an offence introduced in legislation passed in the aftermath of the bombing, but not for an act directly related to it.
The Omagh bombing joins the litany of atrocities arising out of the North’s conflict for which no one has been convicted. Those initially convicted of the Birmingham and Guildford bombings were found to have been wrongly convicted, and no one else was ever charged, though an IRA team already convicted of another offence later admitted to the bombing of Guildford. No one was ever arrested, let alone charged, in connection with the Dublin and Monaghan bombings.
The pressure on the police in the aftermath of such atrocities to make arrests and find evidence on which to convict is intense.
In this case, two of the six gardaí involved in interviewing Colm Murphy in Monaghan Garda station on February 22nd, 1999, fabricated notes of the interview. This was discovered by a process called electrostatic document analysis, whereby sheets of notepaper are examined to show the indents made by writing on the sheets immediately above. This shows whether or not they were written in sequence.
This analysis revealed the fact that the third page of these notes was removed when it was discovered that it contained incorrect information about Murphy’s family, which therefore could not have been given by him. A different third page was substituted instead.
Although in Murphy’s first trial for conspiracy to cause explosions the Special Criminal Court did not consider the fabrication to be sufficient to lead to an acquittal, this view was not shared by the Court of Criminal Appeal, which ruled that the conviction should be quashed, and ordered a retrial.
The gardaí involved in the fabrication were charged with perjury in 2004, but they were acquitted by direction of the trial judge following three days of legal argument. Ironically, the judge ruled out documentary evidence of the fabrication on the grounds that the prosecution could not establish a chain of custody for the original interview notes or the document analysis.
This outcome, and the fact that the surviving member of the team, Garda John Fahy (Garda Liam Donnelly has since died), offered no explanation to the court for the fabrication of the notes, meant that it could not know whether any or all of the rest of the team were aware of the falsification or were part of some overall conspiracy, though the court stressed it made no finding in relation to the integrity of the other officers.
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DET GARDA John Fahy of Glaslough, Co Monaghan and Det Garda Liam Donnelly of Cavan town gave evidence in the 2001 trial of Colm Murphy.
They were later charged with perjury, forgery and using a forged document in relation to the interview notes at the centre of Murphy’s acquittal yesterday.
The two gardaí pleaded not guilty and were acquitted in the Circuit Criminal Court in October 2006. Judge Desmond Hogan directed the jury to acquit the detectives following his ruling that the allegedly forged interview notes and technical analysis were inadmissible.
The judge’s ruling came on day six of the trial following three days of legal argument. He found the prosecution was unable to establish a chain of custody in relation to the original interview notes or of the later “electrostatic document analysis” of them.
Prosecuting counsel told the jury in the detectives’ trial that Mr Murphy was arrested in February 1999 in connection with the bombing, and was systematically interviewed by teams of gardaí.
He said Mr Murphy was interviewed by the two accused men for two hours. Det Garda Donnelly made notes and Det Garda Fahy primarily asked questions.
Mr Donnelly has since died and Det Garda Fahy is still serving in the force.
The Irish Times understands the Garda Ombudsman Commission is to review Mr Murphy’s acquittal yesterday, along with the ruling of the court that the falsified Garda interview notes tainted the prosecution.
Given that both of the investigating gardaí have already been the subject of a prosecution and were acquitted, and because one of them is deceased, it is unclear whether the Garda Ombudsman Commission would see merit in conducting its own investigation.
However, while the commission normally investigates complaints made by the public against gardaí, it also has the power to open an inquiry into any issue, including historical events, if it believes the public interest would be served by such an investigation.
A brief statement issued by Garda Headquarters last night said it would not be appropriate for the Garda to comment on the decision of the Special Criminal Court.
“However, our resolve and determination to combat the activities of dissident republicans is as strong as ever,” the statement added.
ARCHIVE: Citizens Free Press Ireland.com 
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