Commenting on today’s ruling against John Downey TUV Comber Councillor Stephen Cooper said:
“Today is a stark reminder of just how perverse Tony Blair’s OTR letter scheme was. Downey should have stood trial in a criminal court and been made to answer for the dreadful events of July 1982. The brutal murders of four soldiers in full regalia in Hyde Park and the loss of a large number of horses killed in a bomb blast which showered the area with shrapnel and six inch nails was a particularly savage act of terrorism.
“It is an indictment of society that it was left to the families to bring this case and a telling insight into how sordid the backroom dealings of Tony Blair were. There will be those who hope this opens the door to further successful civil actions against Republicans, many of whom are very wealthy. I certainly hope it does. However, the lesson of Omagh is that sometimes such actions while gaining a moral victory have little prospect of actually seeing the guilty brought to justice.”