Colm Murphy was yesterday convicted at the Special Criminal Court in Dublin of conspiring to cause the Omagh bomb which killed 29 people, including a mother pregnant with twins, and injured over 300 in 1998.
Murphy faces a possible maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Following the conviction Murphy, a 49-year-old father-of-four, who had been on bail, was remanded in custody for sentencing on Friday.
The building contractor and publican from Co Armagh, with an address at Jordan's Corner, Ravensdale, Co Louth, had pleaded not guilty to conspiring in Dundalk with another person not before the court to cause an explosion in the State or elsewhere between August 13th and 16th, 1998.
The prosecution claimed Mr Murphy lent his mobile phone and another mobile phone he obtained from Mr Terence Morgan to the people who planted the Omagh bomb. Det Garda James B. Hanley told the court that Murphy had admitted he lent his phone to known republicans, knowing it would be used for moving bombs.
Mr Morgan gave evidence last November that he had lent his mobile phone to Murphy, but last Friday he retracted that evidence.
Det Garda Hanley told the court that when asked if he knew his phone was going to be used in a criminal act, Murphy said:"Yes, I knew it would be used for moving bombs. I knew these fellas were involved in moving bombs to Northern Ireland". In another interview, Murphy was asked if he had been told by a named "Real IRA" man that his phone was to be used in planting the Omagh bomb and he replied: "No, he didn't have to say it, he wouldn't talk about it. It was a disaster, nobody set out to kill anybody in Omagh, it was just a complete mess."
Delivering the judgment, Mr Justice Robert Barr, said the interview given by Murphy to Det Garda Hanley and Det Sgt Gerard Mc Grath at Monaghan Garda station on February 23rd, 1999 was "crucial to the prosecution case."
"It is relied upon as establishing that the accused procured Terence Morgan's phone on August 14th, 1998 and passed it together with his own mobile phone to [a named dissident republican] in the knowledge that both were required by him in connection with the movement of a bomb for detonation at a location in Northern Ireland".
The judge said the essence of the crime of conspiracy in the case was that the accused collaborated to provide two mobile phones in connection with conveying a bomb to Northern Ireland and that he knew the purpose for which the phones were required. He said the court had already ruled that the evidence of one of the teams of interrogators, Det Garda Liam Donnelly and Det Garda John Fahy was inadmissible as interview notes had been rewritten.
But he said there was no evidence that other, more senior officers were aware of Garda Donnelly's wrongdoing and nothing to suggest the activities of other interrogators were tainted by it.
The judge said the defence had contended that there had been a "dovetailing of evidence" by four prosecution witnesses - Detectives Garda Hanley and Mc Grath; Ms Lisa Purnell, an intelligence analyst working with the RUC and Det Sgt Costello - about cell site analysis relating to the use of Murphy's mobile phone in Banbridge on August 1st, 1998. But the court believed there was "nothing to establish so-called 'dovetailing' of evidence between the four prosecution witnesses concerned."
Mr Justice Barr said the court rejected Mr Morgan's retraction of evidence "and accepts the veracity of his original testimony beyond reasonable doubt".
The judgment said the court was "satisfied that the following facts which have been proved in evidence beyond reasonable doubt are collectively corroborative of the accused's confessions of guilt regarding his part in the conspiracy to plant and detonate the Omagh car-bomb:
1. The phone records which establish the movement of the accused's phone and the Morgan phone to and from Omagh at a time consistent with the bombing there on 15th August, 1998.
2. Traffic between the two phones on that date.
3. Lies told by the accused to Terence Morgan by way of explanation for wishing to borrow his mobile phone on 14th August, 1998.
4. Lies told by the accused to Detective Gardai Reidy and King about not having loaned his mobile phone to anyone on the day of the Omagh bombing, which lies were retracted by him in later Garda interrogations.
5. The fact that the accused's admissions of guilt recorded in Garda interview notes are uncontradicted in evidence.
6. Telephone records relating to use of the accused's mobile phone at Banbridge on 1st August, 1998 and the broad similarity between the traffic pattern there and the Omagh phone traffic in relation to the accused's and Morgan's phones.
7. The accused is a republican terrorist of long standing having been convicted of serious offences of that nature in this State and in the United States of America for each of which he served prison sentences. In the light of that background and his membership of a dissident terrorist group in Ireland which is not on cease-fire he is a person likely to be involved in terrorist activities of the sort charged against him.
8. Among others contacted by the accused's mobile phone shortly before the Banbridge bombing was [a named republican dissident] - to whom the accused is alleged to have stated he had supplied his own and Terence Morgan's phone on or about 15/8/1998 for use in connection with the Omagh bombing.
9.The accused is alleged to have conceded that [the named republican dissident\] was then a member of the "Real IRA". [The dissident] is recorded as having received three calls from the accused's mobile phone on August 1st, 1998 at 13.05; 13.48 and 14.09.
The judgment added that it was "highly likely" that Murphy would have feared that the mobile phone information "would be used to connect him with actual participation in the transportation of the car-bomb to Omagh". In order to "distance himself from actual participation in the Omagh bombing per se, he had a strong incentive to tell the truth - that he had collaborated in the Omagh conspiracy in that he had provided two mobile phones for use in carrying out the intended objective but that that was the full extent of his part in the operation.