Judgment in the Omagh bombing trial will be delivered by the end of next month. The trial of 37-year-old south Armagh electrician Sean Hoey ended in January with Mr Justice Weir admitting that he had an extensive amount of evidence to consider.
Last month it was speculated that the amount of evidence heard by the court during the 56-day hearing would mean that trial judge Mr Justice Weir would not be able to deliver a judgment before the end of the court term in June.
That would mean that a verdict would not be heard until the beginning of the new term in September.
However, legal sources last night (Wednesday) confirmed that the prosecution and defence teams have now been informed that a verdict will be delivered before the end of the court term.
Hoey, who is the longest serving remand prisoner in Northern Ireland having already served three and a half years in jail, denies a total of 56 charges, including 29 counts of murder as a result of the 1998 bombing.
A key part of the prosecution case relies on controversial Low Copy Number (LCN) DNA forensic testing which allegedly linked Hoey to a number of devices.
However, it later emerged after the trial had ended that the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) in Britain had launched a review of all LCN DNA cases due to concerns over test results.
The prosecution team in the Omagh bomb trial insisted that they would have informed Hoey's defence team of the concerns over the LCN method if they had been made aware of the ACPO review.
