(by Suzanne Breen, The Newsletter)

Colm Murphy has become one of the most despised names in the history of the Northern Ireland conflict. The Dundalk builder was found guilty last week of conspiring with the Omagh bombers.

It would be hard to find a crime more widely regarded as heinous than that. He was sentenced to 14 years by the Special Criminal Court in Dublin but is appealing the conviction on 36 grounds.

The media has been celebrating yet there are many reasons for caution. The Special Criminal Court is the Republic's most controversial court. It has no jury and has a very high conviction rate.

The case against Murphy is decidedly weak and could end up in Europe. Journalists who covered the trial were expecting him to walk free. Privately, some relatives and unionist politicians say his conviction could well be over-turned on appeal.

So flimsy was much of the evidence that legal experts believe he would not have been charged, let alone convicted, in Northern Ireland. Yet there has been a lack of voices saying this publicly.

The horror of the Omagh bomb, its continuing presence in the public memory; and the controversy over the police investigation, has meant the space does not exist to do anything but unquestioningly celebrate Murphy's conviction.

If you take any other line, you risk being accused of letting terrorists off the hook. The pressure is even greater because Murphy is the only person to have faced trial in connection with Omagh.

The attitude is that one conviction - however shaky or vulnerable to being over-turned later - is better than no conviction at all. That approach ultimately serves no-one as we saw with the Guildford Four, Birmingham Six, and UDR Four.

It is well established that Murphy was a leading republican. He has convictions in the 1970s and early 80s for paramilitary activities. But the evidence linking him to the Omagh bomb was by no means substantial.

The chief prosecution witness withdrew his evidence and the prosecution case was based on unsigned and hotly contested statements attributed to Murphy in Monaghan Garda Station in February 1999.

The trial judges found that two senior Garda interrogators fabricated a statement attributed to Murhpy and then persistently lied on oath about it. Detective Liam Donnelly and Detective John Fahy are facing a criminal investigation.

In Det Donnelly's original notes, Murphy did not know the identity of his own wife's sister and stated she was an entirely different person who was associated with a man suspected of the Omagh bombing.

The fabrication was discovered by an electro-static document analysis (ESDA) test. This forensic test was used to over-turn the convictions of the Birmingham Six, Guildford Four, and three of the UDR Four.

In the Guildford case it was established only that the police had rewritten interview notes with two of the men but the court decided that made the convictions of all four unsafe.

Some of the Omagh families travelled to Dublin for Murphy's conviction and sentencing. They were pleased with the result. The authorities on this side of the Border have emerged very badly from the bomb investigation.

There was tremendous pressure for a conviction. The bereaved met Sir Ronnie Flanagan six days after the court verdict. Imagine the mood if Murphy had walked free. At least the police report handed to relatives stated, 'Conviction - 1'.

It might be unpopular to do anything but rejoice at Murphy's conviction but unthinkingly following the dominant mood of the day never permanently solves anything. Somehow, I think this case won't be going away.

This article appeared in the January 31, 2002 edition of the The Newsletter.

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