THE TELECOMMUNICATIONS company Vodafone put unprecedented resources into assisting the hunt for the Omagh bombers, the High Court in Belfast heard yesterday.
The firm's former fraud investigation boss revealed staff spent up to three months trawling through the call records of four phone numbers supplied by police.
Giving evidence at the multimillion-pound civil action in Belfast against five men accused of being responsible for the Real IRA attack which killed 29 people, Raymond Green said the list included those the RUC believed belonged to suspects or others who may have been involved.
Data files sent to detectives investigating the August 1998 massacre tracked all calls made to and from the phones between January and November of that year.
Mr Green said: "It was a very significant exercise. Over a period of time a great deal of effort was expended assisting the RUC and Garda Síochána in pursuing these inquiries.
"Vodafone becomes involved in a lot of crimes and terrorist events. I think this was by far the largest commitment we have ever given to assisting law enforcement agencies.
"There was a high degree of support and co-operation. It was at board level discussion at one point and within Vodafone I received very full and committed co-operation from my colleagues," added Mr Green.
Day six of the case against convicted Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt, Séamus McKenna, Liam Campbell, Colm Murphy and Seamus Daly - all being sued by the families of some of the victims - centred on telephone evidence.
Mr Green, who left Vodafone in 2004 to direct a company producing specialist software for police forces and other businesses, said the RUC was given cell site analysis on four numbers.
These were identified as "Murphy", "Morgan", "Treanor" and "Brady" phones, which were earlier revealed to have made 20 calls on the day of the bomb blast at various locations from Co Louth in the Republic to Omagh town itself.
Information was released to police under the Data Protection Act, with document and CD files handed over, Mr Green said.
He added that billing records used for all activity on the network for which the company charges was 99.997 per cent accurate.
Questioned by Lord Brennan QC, for the families, he gave details on the signal strengths from cell sites used in mobile calls.
One of those under scrutiny involved the mast in Omagh town centre, which the court heard had transmitted calls from the phones being investigated.
Mr Green said: "The conclusion we were able to draw from that is in the Omagh site itself there was no reason to believe coverage outside 5km of Omagh would be achieved."