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Prosecution claims DNA links in Omagh bombing

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.
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