Informer may be defence witness in Omagh case
29 August 2006
A former police informant who claims that advanced warnings of the Omagh bomb were ignored has indicated he is prepared to stand as a defence witness in the trial of the man accused of 1998 atrocity.
Former IRA bombmaker Kevin Fulton may now provide evidence which could cast doubt on prosecution claims that Sean Hoey was the only person capable of making that bomb.
The prosecution of Hoey is due to open on September 6 in Belfast.
Fulton told a Sunday newspaper that he would be happy to appear as a witness at the trial, if subpoenaed.
He is understood to have met Hoey’s solicitor Peter Corrigan, at the London offices of British Irish Rights Watch, a human rights group.
Hoey, 36, from Jonesborough, south Armagh, has been returned for trial for the murders of 29 people killed in the 1998 Real IRA atrocity, including Buncrana schoolchildren Sean McLaughlin, Oran Doherty and James Barker. He denies all 61 terrorist and explosive charges against him.
Fulton has told police ombudsman Nuala O’Loan that he warned his police handler that he had seen another bombmaker, referred to as Man A, mixing explosives shortly before the Omagh bombing.
There have been repeated suggestions that Man A, who now lives in Newry, was also an informant and was protected by the authorities. Similar suspicions surround another Real IRA bombmaker who cannot be named for legal reasons.
Michael Gallagher, whose son Aidan was killed in the blast, said he would have no objection to Fulton being called as a defence witness.
“I would like Hoey to have the best possible defence because if he is convicted the verdict will be all the safer for that. I don’t want a verdict where there is doubt. So if there are any doors that his defence team want to kick open, I certainly have no objection.
“Fulton is free to do whatever he thinks fit and I will not fall out with him. He was the first to open the door on Omagh; he let us know a lot more than we would otherwise have known.”
