'Unanswered questions' over Omagh bombing intelligence
Photograph taken shortly before the bomb in the red Vauxhall was detonated
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Tuesday, 16, Mar 2010 05:59
By Matthew Champion.
MPs investigating new claims over intelligence-sharing failings before and after the Omagh bombing have said that "far too many questions remain unanswered".
The Commons Northern Ireland affairs committee launched a new investigation after BBC1's Panorama claimed government listening post GCHQ had been monitoring phone calls from the bombers as they drove to Omagh from the Irish Republic on August 15th 1998.
Twenty-nine people, including an expectant mother pregnant with twins, were killed on that day when a car bomb was blown up by dissident republicans.
MPs on the committee said they agreed with the conclusion of intelligence services commissioner Sir Peter Gibson's report that the bombing could not have been prevented as UK intelligence agents were not analysing the bombers' calls in real-time.
But they said they were "disturbed" at suggestions arrests could have been made in the immediate aftermath of the attack and are demanding a further official investigation.
"Far too many questions remain unanswered," the committee said.
"The criminal justice system has failed to bring to justice those responsible for the Omagh bombing. The least that those who were bereaved or injured have the right to expect are answers to those questions."
The committee, which said it wants Northern Ireland secretary Shaun Woodward to drop his line that the issue had "had its inquiry", also expressed "bitter disappointment" at the fact that its chairman Sir Patrick Cormack was only allowed to read a summary of the Gibson report and not its full contents.
"It is thoroughly reprehensible that the government should seek to prevent the parliamentary committee charged with oversight of the affairs of Northern Ireland such access, and we believe that the government's attitude in that respect has done more damage than good," the MPs said.
No 10 said in response that the decision not to release Sir Peter's report was made with national security considerations in mind.
"The Gibson review was shared with the Intelligence and Security Committee chairman Kim Howells," the prime minister's official spokesman said.
"Obviously, when national security is involved, there can only be a limited number of people with who that can be shared."
No one has ever been convicted over the 29 murders although last year four men were found liable in a landmark civil case by the victims' families.
Last month the only man jailed in connection with the bombing, 57-year-old Colm Murphy, was cleared after a retrial in Dublin.