A FORMER Ulster Unionist MP has likened the Northern Ireland Ombudsman to a "suicide bomber" after the leaking of her draft report critical of the RUC's handling of the Omagh bomb.
Lord Maginnis accused Ms Nuala O'Loan of having walked through "police and community interests like a suicide bomber". The way the Ombudsman had handled the case and the conclusions she had drawn showed that she had "absolutely no experience", he told the BBC's Newsnight programme.
"What we are hearing reported now is totally inaccurate and totally irresponsible. It tramples over the emotions of the families," he insisted.
On the same programme, Sinn FΘin vice-president and MP for the Omagh area, Mr Pat Doherty, said the findings suggested that action could have been taken to try and prevent the attack. The police's actions had all the hallmarks of a "cover-up", he added.
"Special Branch must now be disbanded and those who failed to act on this information from the Chief Constable down should now be removed from the policing structures immediately." On a visit to Omagh yesterday, Mr Doherty also criticised the Northern Secretary, Dr John Reid, for taking up "an entirely political position in defence of Special Branch in the face of overwhelming evidence". Dr Reid's position "blatantly undermined" the Belfast Agreement, the Sinn FΘin MP insisted.
A DUP MLA, Mr Sammy Wilson, accused Ms O'Loan of pursuing an anti-police agenda. Her report provided "further confirmation of the anti-police bias which rests within the [Ombudsman's] organisation" while only serving to move the focus of the Omagh atrocity away from the perpetrators, he added.
The Police Federation of Northern Ireland called on Ms O'Loan to consider her position claiming her report was "not based on anything which could properly be called evidence". Her knowledge of the handling of intelligence and the realities of policing in Northern Ireland was "simplistic in the extreme", a spokesman added.