Omagh bombing: man faces murder charges:6.14PM, Wed May 4 2005

Sean Gerard Hoey, 35 (DOB August 13, 1969 )
an electrician from, Molly Road, Jonesborough, South Armagh man is to be charged with murdering the 29 people who died in the Omagh bombing. The office of the Director of Public Prosecutions in Belfast has given police the go-ahead after a mammoth investigation which involved a review of all the forensic evidence by an international panel of scientists from Toronto, New York and Switzerland.

Hoey is already in custody on a series of terrorist charges and membership of the Real IRA, the dissident republican group which bombed Omagh killed 29 people including unborn twins and injured 300 in August 1998. Hoey who is being held at Maghaberry Prison, near Lisburn, Co Antrim is due to appear at a remand hearing at Craigavon, Co Armagh on May 19. He is the FIRST person to be charged for the offence in Northern Ireland. (Amazing what an election can do to the speed of justice)

Hoey is also accused of explosives charges and of possessing timer units allegedly linked to several mortar, car and roadside bombs in the months before Omagh.

Hoey who is being held at Maghaberry Prison, near Lisburn, Co Antrim is due to appear at a remand hearing at Craigavon, Co Armagh on May 19 2005.

At last the state moves against terrorism after 7 years - luckily they only used bombs and not osmium tetroxide or ricin... of course in July 2001 a double agent using the pseudonym Kevin Fulton alleges he told his Special Branch handlers days in advance of the Omagh attack that the Real IRA was preparing a bomb. It is claimed Special Branch failed to pass this information on.

More on Fulton in Guardian >>>>