DNA used to link Sean Hoey to a Republican bombing campaign in the North may have been transferred via a contaminated examination table, a court heard yesterday.
American forensic expert Professor Dan Krane told Belfast Crown Court that the incriminating material could have been spread to bomb components during processing at a laboratory.
Mr Hoey (37) has been linked by prosecutors to a number of devices including one defused in Lisburn, near Belfast, in 1998. His DNA was allegedly found on that device. But Mr Krane told the court: "If the item of Mr Hoey's was on a table top, for instance, removed and subsequently these seized items came on to the table top . . . it could result in a transfer."
Mr Hoey, Molly Road, Jonesborough, Co Armagh, denies 58 charges including the murder of 29 people in the 1998 Omagh bombing.
Mr Krane, a witness called by the defence team, specialises in Low Copy Number (LCN) DNA, a relatively new identifying material being used by prosecutors to incriminate Mr Hoey. Mr Hoey's profiles were also found using the technique at Armagh City and Blackwatertown in 1998 and Altmore Forest Park, Co Tyrone, in 2001.
Prosecutor Gordon Kerr QC told the court: "Can I suggest to you that somehow there was a source of Mr Hoey's DNA on PN5 [ the timer power unit] . . . That the only likely explanation apart from a fanciful one is that there was a source of Mr Hoey's DNA in or on PN5 for that to happen."
The trial is expected to continue for several weeks.