Family of murdered GAA official say Omagh claims show public inquiry the only way to find truth

The claim at the Omagh Bombing Inquiry that one of the bombers was a state agent proves a public inquiry is the only way of finding the truth about the murder of GAA official Sean Brown, his family has said.

“The only mechanism adequate to getting at the truth in the case of the Omagh bombing is the public inquiry that was established, and the only mechanism that could be considered adequate in our case is also a public inquiry,” his daughter Clare Loughran said.

Brown, a father of six, was locking the gates at Bellaghy Wolfe Tones GAA club in Co Derry when he was abducted and murdered by loyalist paramilitaries in 1997.

Up to 25 people, some of whom were state agents, have been linked through intelligence to his killing.

A ruling by Belfast’s Court of Appeal, which ordered a public inquiry into the murder, has been challenged by the UK government, and a judgment is awaited from the Supreme Court.

On Thursday, the public inquiry into the 1998 bombing of Omagh by dissident republicans, which killed 31 people including unborn twins, began hearing evidence from retired senior police officer Norman Baxter, who led the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) investigation into the atrocity from 2002 to 2008.

He told the inquiry “one of the people who brought the bomb to Omagh on the day was an agent” – who he clarified on Friday was “a Garda-MI5 source” – and said there had been a “co-ordinated obstruction of the investigation” which “prevented” those responsible from being detected.

Referencing a remark by Ronnie Flanagan, who was PSNI chief constable at the time of the Omagh bombing, that “no stone would be left unturned” to bring those responsible to justice, Baxter said “the problem was that people had hid some of the stones, so the investigators couldn’t find the stones to look under”.

In a statement to The Irish Times on Friday, the Brown family said that “given the admission by a coroner that agents were involved in the murder of our father and the reality that no investigation to date could ‘find the stones to look under’”, the revelation proved “the only mechanism that could be considered adequate in our case is also a public inquiry”.

[ A Bitter Harvest: A Derry man’s family search for his ‘British state-sponsored’ killerOpens in new window ]

Loughran said: “The ‘secret state’ will go to any lengths to hide the truth when it comes to the issue of agent involvement in murder, and this has become obvious in the case of Pat Finucane, where there is now a public inquiry, and in [the case of] Omagh.

“The revelation of agent involvement in the 1997 murder of our father cries out for a truly independent mechanism capable of ‘finding the stones to look under’,” she said, adding that the family “have zero confidence in the ability or determination of the discredited ICRIR [legacy body] to do this.

“As a family, we wish to send our support and solidarity to the families of those murdered and injured in the Omagh bombing,” she said.