The Special Criminal Court in Dublin adjourned for two weeks contempt of court proceedings being brought against the BBC and the Daily Mail by a man accused of plotting the 1998 Omagh bomb.
Mr Colm Murphy has brought a notice for attachment, committal and sequestration against the BBC and Associated Newspapers for alleged contempt of court by the BBC's Panorama programme and a follow-up report in the Daily Mail.
Yesterday Mr Kevin Feeney SC, counsel for the BBC and Associated Newspapers, submitted that the Special Criminal Court was "inappropriate" to deal with the alleged contempt. He submitted that the motion should be heard in the High Court and he said his clients would be appealing to the Supreme Court if the case went against them.
Mr Feeney said the correct approach would be to take the motion to the High Court where it should be heard before a jury. He said the BBC had been the subject of two unsuccessful applications in another jurisdiction to stop them broadcasting the matter which is the subject of the alleged contempt.
Mr Michael O'Higgins SC, counsel for Mr Murphy, said if his client won the case he had no doubt that the newspapers "who have buckets of money" would go all the way to the Supreme Court. He submitted that if the BBC and Associated Newspapers were saying there were facts in dispute which entitled them to a jury trial, his client was entitled to know what the facts were.
Mr Justice Diarmuid O'Donovan, presiding, adjourned the case until February 12th.
The trial of Mr Murphy, who was not in court for yesterday's hearing, is due to begin on October 9th next.
Mr Murphy (48), a married publican and building contractor from Co Armagh with an address in Co Louth, is charged with conspiring in Dundalk with another person not before the court to cause an explosion in the State or elsewhere between August 13th and 16th, 1998.
He is also charged with membership of an illegal organisation styling itself Oglaigh na hEireann on August 14th, 1998.