JURIST - Paper Chase: Ireland quashes Omagh bombing conviction

[JURIST] An Irish appeals court Friday quashed the only criminal conviction stemming from the 1998 Omagh bombing [BBC file report; BBC backgrounder] which killed twenty-nine people and injured hundreds more in the largest terror attack in the history of the Northern Ireland "troubles". Responsibility for the attack was claimed by the Real IRA [BBC backgrounder]. The Court of Criminal Appeal [official website] in Dublin granted a retrial to Colm Murphy, who was sentenced in 2002 to 14 years in prison by Ireland's anti-terrorist Special Criminal Court [official website] for providing cell phones to a terrorist organization. The quashed conviction was based on the original court's mishandling of evidence from two Irish detectives, who added false statements to handwritten interrogation notes, and because the original court had made illegal references to Murphy's previous convictions. AP has more. RTE, the Irish public broadcaster, provides extensive local coverage from Dublin.

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