The Omagh bomb victims’ families will challenge Gordon Brown today over claims that vital intelligence on the bombers was withheld from police.
Relatives of the victims of the 1998 Real IRA outrage are meeting with the British prime minister to discuss alleged failings by the security services both before and after the attack.
A television documentary last year claimed that the government’s listening station GCHQ had tracked the bombers on the day of the atrocity but failed to alert police.
The allegation made by BBC Panorama was rebutted last month by a government-commissioned inquiry carried out by Intelligence Commissioner Sir Peter Gibson.
However, Omagh families are unhappy with Sir Peter’s findings and say he did not address another key claim made in the programme — that in the wake of the bomb, information on the identity of the perpetrators was not passed to police officers in Omagh.
Twenty nine people, including a mother pregnant with twins, were killed when the 500lb car bomb exploded in the town centre after misleading warnings.
The attack inflicted the single biggest loss of life during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
The families’ meeting with Gordon Brown is their second visit to Downing Street after holding talks with Tony Blair in 2007.
PA