The man accused of murdering 29 people in the Omagh bomb atrocity has failed in an attempt to have the charges thrown out.
Seán Hoey (37) is being tried for the 1998 Real IRA explosion in Belfast Crown Court which refused his defence team's effort to drop all charges.
Separate counts of causing an explosion and conspiracy to murder have been dropped after Mr Justice Weir's intervention.
The judge said that the defence had to prove "that the evidence was so discredited or so intrinsically weak that it could not support a proper conviction.
"I have not concluded that the state of the evidence in relation to any of those remaining counts does meet that test."
The trial of Mr Hoey, an electrician, from Molly Road, Jonesborough, Co Armagh, was adjourned until the new year. - (PA)