Teebane probe 'stopped to protect informer'

A DUP MP has been told a police investigation into an IRA bomb which cost the lives of eight Protestants at Teebane was stopped to protect a republican informer. In 1992 an IRA bomb exploded on the main Omagh to Cookstown road, killing eight workmen who had been contracted to work at an Army base.

Rev William McCrea met many ministers and senior police officers, helping force the reopening of the inquiry five years ago with relatives' support.

They carried out tests on crime scene artefacts which produced DNA samples, but relatives were astounded when police refused to bring in the original suspects for DNA testing because it would violate their human rights. Criminal law QC and DUP MEP Jim Allister said he had never seen the police fail to make arrests in such a case.

The PSNI declined to comment, while the Historical Enquiries Team, only formed last year, said it was working thoroughly through all unsolved cases from 1969, and would reopen the file. A spokesman for the Human Rights Commission has now also suggested the way would have been clear for the police to make arrests.

"The police are empowered to take DNA samples from anyone arrested for an indictable offence," he said. "If the police have a reasonable suspicion that a particular person committed a serious crime, and there is

DNA evidence, we would expect them to make the arrest and take DNA samples."
Considering the case, former RUC detective Trevor Mcllrath, who put loyalists Johnny Adair and Ken Barrett behind bars, also said he never had any such problems arresting suspects for DNA tests.

Mr McCrea said yesterday: "I have recently been informed that a fingerprint of an IRA man was found in relation to this bombing and that this IRA man was assisting police. "I want to know whether someone is being protected or not. All the families want is justice. "It seems so strange that so many other atrocities are being opened up in the full glare of publicity but nothing is heard about Teebane, which was one of the largest slaughters of the Troubles. I am considering a complaint to the Police Ombudsman as being the only way forward."

At the Teebane inquest the Army said they had no knowledge of the van's movements and therefore provided no security for it. The employer, Karl Construction, insisted it provided all details to the police, but this is contested by survivor and former employee Robert O'Neill. This week the Public Prosecution Service said the PSNI forwarded it a file in 2003 looking at "possible criminal liability of any police officer or person associated with Karl Construction Ltd" for manslaughter, but that the evidence was not sufficient to provide a reasonable prospect of conviction. News Letter 31st January 2007