Omagh Bombing Inquest Ends

A father's angry plea for justice marked the end Thursday of a monthlong coroner's inquest into the car bombing of Omagh, an atrocity that left 29 people dead, shattered a community and raised questions about the price of Northern Ireland's peace process.

Victor Barker, whose 12-year-old son James was killed in the 1998 attack, condemned the British government for failing to crack down on the Irish Republican Army dissidents responsible.

"I find it inexcusable that the government of Great Britain has only chosen to give us pieties about the hunt for the Omagh bombers, and has singularly failed to deliver any form of justice to the innocent victims, especially the children whose lives and bodies were shattered, including that of James," Barker told an Omagh press conference.

The 500-pound car bomb blew up in the midst of a crowd of shoppers on Omagh's main shopping street. Victims included mothers shopping for school uniforms, a woman heavily pregnant with twins, two toddlers and a pair of Spanish exchange students. The 29 dead and more than 300 wounded many of whom lost limbs, suffered extensive burns or were blinded made it the bloodiest terrorist strike in Northern Irish history.

In response, the governments of Britain and Ireland passed emergency legislation designed to make it easier to convict those suspected of planning and carrying out the Aug. 15, 1998, attack.

The dissidents, who oppose the IRA cease-fire of 1997 and have been dubbed the Real IRA by Irish media, are based mostly in border areas of the neighboring Irish Republic. Police believe they have identified most of those involved, based chiefly on telephone records that aren't admissible in court.

So far, one person has been charged with conspiring to cause the explosion, 48-year-old pub owner Colm Murphy. Free on bail for the past year, he has yet to face trial in the Irish Republic.

In the latest police sweep, detectives released five people arrested Tuesday on suspicion of Real IRA involvement. A sixth man was charged with membership in the illegal group, a charge that is traditionally difficult to prove.

IRA dissidents had planted several car bombs in other Northern Irish towns before targeting Omagh. Security forces prevented deaths in the earlier attacks by either defusing the bombs or evacuating the area after receiving telephoned warnings.

Barker, a lawyer, said it had been reckless to confine British soldiers to their bases in support of the Belfast peace accord, achieved four months before the Omagh attack. Under that pact, Britain was to reduce the numbers of soldiers and police in line with the perceived terrorist threat.

When police received telephone warnings of a bomb near the courthouse in Omagh, about a dozen officers were available to evacuate 180 businesses and examine 150 cars parked nearest to the courthouse, senior policemen told the inquest. The soldiers based in the town weren'deployed until the blast erupted some 300 yards from the courthouse.

Most of the inquest laid down in gruesome detail the fatal injuries. Many of the victims' families overcame their anguish to attend the hearings, which also showed video footage of the bomb's aftermath and photographs of the victims.

On Thursday, deputy pathologist Derek Carson testified that James Barker died from massive internal injuries three hours after the blast. A policeman, Constable Mark Benson, said he found James gasping for breath in the middle of the street and tried to comfort him.

The local hospital's senior surgeon, Dr. Dominic Pinto, said he might have been able to save James' life if he hadn't been overwhelmed with scores of similarly urgent cases.

"In a young person like him, if he was the only person who arrived at the hospital and all our attention was on James, we would probably have, if we had stemmed the bleeding earlier," Pinto testified to Victor Barker, who was allowed to question Thursday's witnesses himself.

Coroner's inquests are supposed to pinpoint the details of death, not to assign guilt. Because of the magnitude of this case, Northern Ireland's chief coroner, John Leckey, convened proceedings in the town's gymnasium, the largest public venue available.