By Mairead Carey

Colm Murphy, the only man so far convicted of the 1998 Omagh bombing, has begun an appeal against his conviction. 

Murphy, 51, was jailed for 14 years for conspiring to cause explosions that killed 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins, in Omagh in August 1998. Over 300 people were injured in the attack on a busy shopping street in the market town on a Saturday afternoon. 

His lawyers on Tuesday opened 45 grounds of appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal. They claim that the judges who heard the initial case erred in law and in fact, and should not have convicted Murphy. 

The appeal, which is likely to last three days, will focus particularly on the evidence of two Gardai whom the court found had lied on oath and falsified interview notes against Murphy. 

“A huge element of my application concentrates on the fact that at the trial two officers had rewritten notes and committed massive perjury,” Michael O’Higgins told the court yesterday. 

He added it was a complete red herring to claim these police officers were junior members of the investigation team when they had decades of experience between them.

Murphy was found to have provided two mobile phones used by the bombers who carried out the Omagh attack. This finding was backed up by verbal admissions to Gardai and by mobile phone records.

However, O’Higgins said tests revealed that a Garda interrogation team rewrote its interview notes after realizing it had inserted a false statement concerning Murphy’s wife.

The false statement has suggested that his wife was a sister of a woman associated with a Real IRA figure.

Murphy, from Ravensdale, Co. Louth, is also being sued by the relatives of those who died in the atrocity. 

A date in January has been set for the hearing of the civil case against him and four other men suspected of carrying out the Omagh bombing.

The leader of the Real IRA Michael McKevitt, and his former right hand man, Liam Campbell, Colm Murphy and two other suspects, Seamus Daly and Seamus McKenna, are being sued for £10 million by the Omagh Victims’ Civil Action Group. It is the first civil case of its kind to be held in either Ireland or Britain. 

It is not yet clear if former FBI agent, David Rupert, will travel to Belfast to give evidence in the civil case. 

Rupert, who infiltrated the Real IRA in the 1990s, was a crucial witness in the criminal trial taken against McKevitt, who was jailed last year for directing terrorism. 

Lawyers for the families have argued that Rupert’s evidence should be heard by video link from the U.S. to ensure his safety.