20/02/2002

Geldof rallies support for Omagh fundraising campaign

Celebrities and politicians have come together to raise public awareness about a fundraising campaign by relatives of the Omagh bomb victims for civil action against those they claim were behind the attack.

Live Aid founder Bob Geldof, former world boxing champion Barry McGuigan and former Northern Ireland secretary Peter Mandelson are among those backing the families' drive to meet a £1.5 million shortfall to fund a civil case.

Twenty-nine people died and two unborn children were killed in the dissident republican Real IRA car bomb which ripped through the town of Omagh on 15 August, 1998.

The fund-raising drive is being co-ordinated by the Omagh Victims and Legal Action Group's to urge members of the business and entertainment communities to back the court action.

The group has until August, exactly a year after the civil writ was served, to reach its £2 million target to fund the civil action. However since the appeal was launched 18 months ago it has raised just £800,000.

Newspaper editors in Britain and Ireland have backed the relatives' fundraising campaign, and the appeal is also being supported by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate David Trimble.

The event was staged at the Irish Club in Eton Square in London on Wednesday February 20.

Only one person has been brought to justice for charges relating to the bomb. Last month, Colm Murphy was jailed for 14 years for conspiracy to cause an explosion.

(AMcE)

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