State agent involved in planting Omagh bomb, inquiry told

A state agent was among those who planted the Omagh bomb, a former senior police officer has told the inquiry investigating the 1998 inquiry.

Norman Baxter headed up the investigation team between 2002 and 2008.

He was giving evidence to the UK public inquiry which is looking into whether the 1998 atrocity could have been stopped.

Twenty nine people died, including a woman pregnant with twins, when the dissident republican car bomb exploded in the Co Tyrone town in August 1998.

"I believe that one of those who brought the bomb to Omagh on the day was an agent," Mr Baxter told the inquiry sitting in Belfast.

He also claimed that there had been a "coordinated obstruction" of the investigation he led in order to prevent the full truth of what happened emerging.

He described this as a "hypothesis" based on his understanding of the case.

He suggested it had been done to protect intelligence sources, prevent the public airing of sensitive police methods, and avoid a large scale policing operation in south Armagh at a politically sensitive time that might have threatened the Provisional IRA ceasefire.

He described a meeting he had attended with a senior officer in Mahon Road station Portadown on 14 August 1998 - the day before the bombing.

In the course of it, they were interrupted by an RUC special branch officer who said he had "something urgent" to discuss.

The officer then revealed that An Garda Síochána had advised of their belief that a car bomb would be travelling north the following day.

The matter was discussed and the decision taken to enact a pre-planned checkpoint strategy to protect towns like Banbridge, Lisburn and Portadown - along the so-called Banbridge corridor.

Mr Baxter said this showed a level of pre-knowledge about what was going to happen, though the special branch officer had been clear that they did not know the target, or the details of the car to be used.

Paul Greaney KC, counsel to the inquiry, asked whether it was a fair summary of Mr Baxter's position that senior policing figures in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland did not want the investigation to succeed because they had information about "matters of importance" which pre-dated the bombing and which they had not acted upon.

Mr Baxter said he believed there had been information " that "something was coming North".

He said he believed there was something going on behind the scenes that would point to a degree of "pre-knowledge".

He said when he finally took over the investigation in 2002, he reviewed the papers but could find no reference to the 14 August warning in the documentation.

He said in 2002 after being given charge of the Omagh Bomb investigation he raised the issue with a different senior officer.

He was told to produce a statement of evidence about the 14 August meeting and pass it directly to his superior, rather than introduce it into the Omagh record.

The senior officer said he would introduce it at an appropriate time.

Mr Baxter said that while he had a very good "day to day" relationship with the gardaí, he did not get support at a more "strategic" level.

He cited examples, including that he was unable to secure permission to speak to a garda agent who had been asked to steal cars for use in bomb attacks.

He said he only got to interview the man after he was detained by British customs officers.

Mr Baxter also said that he had been on the brink of arresting a key suspect, Seamus Daly in mid-February 2003 and submitting a file to prosecutors on terrorism charges.

He said the garda bombing investigation team would have been aware of that fact.

But on 18 February, Daly was arrested by gardaí on suspicion of membership of the Real IRA.

Mr Baxter said the move had "catastrophic" consequences for his plans, "because of the sequence of events that unfolded it was ten years later before he was arrested."

By then, a key witness had decided to change the evidence he had been prepared to give about Daly.