More than eight years after a car bomb devastated Omagh, Northern Ireland, causing the worst single atrocity of the Troubles, an electrician went on trial on Monday accused of murdering 29 people.
The long-awaited case against Sean Hoey, 36, from Jonesborough, South Armagh, opened with the prosecution claiming that it could connect him to the device through DNA samples, microscopic fibers and a recording of a telephoned bomb warning.
The hearing at the high court in Belfast is expected to be one of the last big non-jury terrorist trials in Northern Ireland. It may last several months.
Hoey, who has been in custody for three years, sat in a special security dock as the names of the 29 victims were read out. He occasionally bit his lip but showed no sign of emotion.
A few of the victims' relatives sat in the public gallery but most were at Omagh College in the County Tyrone town, where the proceedings were relayed by a live video link.
Hoey has pleaded not guilty to 58 charges. They include Omagh and 12 other attacks attributed to dissident republican groups between 1998 and 2001.
"The prosecution says [these] were part of a violent campaign conducted by Republicans who had not accepted the cessation of the terrorist campaign leading up to and following the Good Friday Agreement in April 1998," Gordon Kerr QC, for the crown (prosecution), told the court.
"A number of devices are connected not only in the manner of their construction and the materials used but also by fiber evidence. The fibers were recovered from glue, which was used to hold the various parts of the devices together ... Both DNA evidence and fiber evidence connecting the defendant to this series of attacks will show his involvement in them," Kerr said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of