[A-List] UK state: Northern Ireland

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

This looks ominous -- by generating such outrage a further tightening of the
state's repressive apparatus achieves a legitimacy that might otherwise not
have been possible.

-----

Omagh families outraged after judge rules Real IRA not illegal
CAMERON SIMPSON
The Herald, May 27 2004

OUTRAGED families of Omagh bomb victims last night attacked a judge's ruling
that the terrorist group behind the atrocity was not an illegal
organisation.

The government immediately promised to challenge the landmark assessment of
the Real IRA.

Mr Justice Girvan delivered his verdict at Belfast Crown Court as he cleared
four men of membership of the dissident republican faction.

Even though authorities in the Irish Republic and the US have come down hard
on it, the judge insisted the group was not on a proscribed list.

His ruling shocked Michael Gallagher, whose son Aiden was among 29 people
killed in the August 1998 Real IRA attack on Omagh, the worst single outrage
in Northern Ireland's troubles.

Mr Gallagher said: "This is an organisation that's hell-bent on creating
death and devastation. It just leaves you without words that something like
this can happen."

Although the IRA is on a list of outlawed groups, Mr Justice Girvan stressed
the relevant legislation does not include any group named or known as the
Real Irish Republican Army. His decision means anyone attached to the
dissident group cannot be convicted of Real IRA membership alone.

A Northern Ireland Office spokesman said: "The government is very concerned
at this ruling and the director of public prosecutions is a report to the
attorney general with a view to an appeal. The government is clear that RIRA
should be a proscribed organisation."

The Real IRA split from the Provisionals in 1997 during a bitter fall-out
over the involvement of Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness
in the Northern Ireland peace process. Its notoriety was sealed by the Omagh
massacre, and since then its top men have been jailed in the Irish Republic
for membership.

Liam Campbell, Real IRA chief, was sentenced to eight years only last week.

In May 2001, the US designated the group as a foreign terrorist organisation
and froze its financial assets.

Mr Justice Girvan rejected a Crown argument during the trial of the men from
Co Tyrone.

Although acquitted of membership, Donald Mullan, 33, from Firmount Park,
Dungannon, Sean Dillon, 27, of Roughan Way and Kevin Murphy, 33, of Altmore
Park, both Coalisland, and 26-year-old Brendan O'Connor of Cavanoneill Road,
Pomeroy are accused of conspiracy to murder and possession of a rocket
launcher in February 2002.

With British authorities facing a huge legal and political headache, the
Department of Justice in Dublin pointed out how all alleged republican
terrorists tried for offences against the state are classified as members of
Oglaigh na hEireann - Irish for the IRA. This all- encompassing term is
usually followed by a reference to the appropriate faction.

Irish government officials privately conceded that if the Real IRA renamed
itself they would be plunged into similar difficulties.

However, Mr Gallagher claimed no other jurisdiction would allow itself to be
caught out.

He said: "I can't imagine this happening in any other country in the world.

"Why are we so selective here that we have got to have every i dotted? These
people are quite clearly setting themselves up in the business of terrorism
and they are using this historic background to do that.

"The government here should just adopt the same attitude as they do in
Dublin. It's Oglaigh na hEireann or IRA and any pseudonym they use after
that should be applied. We would be very surprised that something like this
was allowed to go this far without it being recognised as a loophole."