McKevitt guilty of Real IRA charges

Veteran republican Michael McKevitt has been convicted of directing the organisation behind the Omagh bomb atrocity.

McKevitt, 53, of Blackrock, Dundalk, Co Louth, was also found guilty of membership of the Real IRA.

He refused to leave his holding cell at Dublin's Special Criminal Court where judgment was given following a five-week trial.

McKevitt is the first person in the Irish Republic to be found guilty of directing terrorism after the Dublin authorities brought in the new offence after the August 1998 Omagh bombing which killed 29 people including a woman pregnant with twins.

Even though the real IRA carried out the outrage, President of the Court, Mr Justice Richard Johnson stressed the offences McKevitt was convicted of dated from after that attack.

The case against McKevitt depended heavily on the evidence of star witness David Rupert, the American trucking company boss turned FBI agent.

Before McKevitt sacked his legal team during the trial, defence lawyers had tried to destroy Mr Rupert's testimony as the work of a serial fantasist.

But Mr Justice Johnson dismissed their ploy and said of Mr Rupert: "Overall he had a very considerable knowledge of the fact to which he testified."

Several relatives of the Omagh victims were in court for the judgement.

Michael Gallagher, whose 21-year-old son Aiden was killed in the blast, said: ``I'm absolutely delighted the verdict has gone the way it has. He (McKevitt) cannot orchestrate another atrocity such as Omagh."

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