Reuters News
Ian Graham / Andras Gergely
* Court says militants alone liable for Omagh deaths
* Rejects idea police could have prevented attack
A court in Northern Ireland ruled on Tuesday that Republican militants alone were liable for deaths in the 1998 Omagh bombing, in a blow to those seeking compensation arguing police could have prevented the attack.
A High Court judge in Belfast rejected a claim for damages against the police and British government by the husband of a woman killed in the Omagh bombing for a failure to prevent the attack which killed 29 people.
The bombing of the County Tyrone town in August 1998 by the Real IRA was the deadliest attack in three decades of violence between mainly Catholic Republicans and predominantly Protestant groups which want to remain part of the United Kingdom.
A woman pregnant with twins was among those killed and more than 200 were wounded when the Real IRA, a splinter group of the Irish Republican Army, detonated the bomb in the market town of Omagh.
Laurence Rush sought compensation for the loss and damage sustained by him and his children caused by the death of his wife Elizabeth.
Rush also argued that the police had sufficient experience with bomb attacks to either have taken action to prevent the car bomb reaching Omagh or to have adequately evacuated the area.
The judge rejected his claims the Omagh case was unique and the police had information about the threat but failed to act upon it.
No one has been convicted for the murders. The only person found guilty, Sean Hoey, was acquitted on appeal.
Last summer a judge in Belfast awarded 1.6 million pounds ($2.31 million) compensation to 12 relatives of victims of the bombing who sued four men they alleged were Real IRA leaders and liable for the bombing. However, no money has yet been paid out pending appeals by the four men.
In March, the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee in the British parliament called for a fresh investigation into whether the state withheld vital information from detectives hunting the Omagh bombers.
An earlier probe was started after a BBC documentary in 2008 said the government's listening station, GCHQ, had monitored suspects' mobile phone calls as they drove over the Irish border and on to Omagh with the bomb.
The British government said it had had to withhold some information from the parliamentary inquiry for security reasons and the lawmakers said questions remained open over the killers' movements around the time of the dissident republican attack.
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