2 Apr 2011

Omagh police officer dies in booby-trap car bomb

A young Catholic police officer in Northern Ireland has been killed after a car bomb exploded under his car in Omagh, Co Tyrone. Politicians from across the political divide have condemned the attack.

A young poilce officer has been killed by a booby trap car bomb in Northern Ireland.

The device exploded under the vehicle outside his home in Highfield Close, off the Gortin Road, in Omagh, Co Tyrone, just before 4pm.

Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams TD has condemned those responsible for the attack in Omagh.

Speaking this afternoon, Mr Adams said: “Firstly I want to condemn what happened in Omagh this afternoon.

“While not all of the information has yet come to light in relation to this incident, it is understood that a young man has lost his life.

“I want to send my condolences to his framily at this hugely traumatic time.”

SDLP assembly candidate Joe Byrne has spoken of the “shock and anger of local people” over the attack.

Writer on Irish affairs Eamonn Mallie told Krishnan Guru-Murthy this was “death in the afternoon”. He said death had returned to the town of Omagh after the bomb in 1998 which killed 29 people.

The victim, a Catholic policeman, had attended the local Christian Brothers school – so he would have been well known in the area.

“Dissidents will be blamed,” Mr Mallie predicted. “Nobody has yet claimed responsibility for this particular incident. But all week there have been attempts at disruption and to try and cause as much mayhem across Northern Ireland as possible. And now the culmination: the death of this young officer.”

Eamonn Mallie warned that there would be a number of groups who would claim responsibility for today’s attack.

What is really alarming is the capacity of these people to put together bombs of this capacity. Eamonn Mallie

“But what is really alarming for the authorities here is the capacity of these people here now to actually put together bombs of this capacity – these improvised devices which have the capacity to do such damage.

“This is the fourth member of the security services in the past two and a half years to meet death at the hands of these people. You have the two soldiers up in Antrim, at the Massereene army base, Constable Stephen Carroll in the Craigavon area, and now this young man, who’s a local man.

“I understand that he was based in Enniskillen but lived in the local area, a son of that town. So this town is plunged into grief.

“And there is a homogeneous condemnation, a universal condemnation, right across the political spectrum of what happened here.

“There’s no real evidence that the people who are perpetrating this type of activity have any support, any visible support. But they have the capacity to do damage.

There’s no real evidence the people perpetrating this type of activity have any visible support. But they have the capacity to do damage. Eamonn Mallie

Discussing the role of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, Eamonn Mallie explained: “There are many of these young Catholics who in the last 10 years decided to join the PSNI.

“Up until then, because of the IRA campaign which had been roaring across Northern Ireland for so many years, you only had pockets of people, small numbers of people, joining the RUC.

“Then, with the reform of the RUC and the emergence of the PSNI on the back of the Patten recommendations, police and the Catholic nationalist community predominantly felt comfortable joining the PSNI – and the numbers are now up to about 30 per cent of that service across Northern Ireland.

“So this was a new situation where young people, emerging in difficult times, with joblessness etcetera, felt relatively comfortable joining the PSNI. This is a new world.”