MI5 plot to convict Omagh bomb suspect Liam Campbell have failed miserably to stitch-him-up with hyped up charges and MI5 agent’s, when all charges against him were dramatically dropped in Lithuania

Liam Campbell

The move comes just months after he was extradited from Ireland

OMAGH bomb suspect Liam Campbell is back in Ireland after Lithuanian authorities dropped terror charges against him

October 18th, 2022.

The move comes just months after he was extradited from Ireland following more than a decade of legal challenges.

The notorious dissident, who was extradited in May to face charges related to weapons smuggling for the Real IRA, returned home last month after a Lithuanian court ruled the statute of limitations on the charges expired four years ago.

Prosecutors are now appealing the decision, as they argue the statute of limitations is not due to expire until January.

Campbell was one of the founding members of the Real IRA and was sentenced to eight years by the Special Criminal Court for membership of the organisation in 2004.

While he was never convicted in relation to the Omagh bomb – which killed 29 people and two unborn twins in 1998 – he was one of four men found liable for the atrocity in a civil case.

He was first arrested in relation to the Lithuanian charges in 2009 but had fought several legal battles to prevent his extradition.

The Irish Supreme Court approved Campbell’s handover in May this year.

Campbell, with an address at Upper Faughart, Dundalk, Co. Louth, appeared before a court in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius in August and told the court he lived in Ireland and had a family there.

He was granted bail set at €50,000 and was required to wear an ankle bracelet to track his movements.

At the hearing, his defence attorney Inga Botyriene argued the statute of limitations had expired on the charges against Campbell.

She argued that new legislation had been enacted in 2013 which categorised the crimes he was accused of as ‘serious’, and not ‘very serious’.

As a result, the statute of limitations had reduced from 15 years to 10 years and would have expired in January 2018.

Prosecutors argued the old 15-year limit should be applied as it was deemed in that category when it was committed.

However, in a ruling delivered last month, the Vilnius District Court agreed with the defence submissions and terminated the criminal case against Campbell. The decision is now being appealed to the Vilnius Court of Appeal.

When contacted by the Sunday World this week, Ms Botyriene said Campbell has since returned to Ireland.

“By the decision of the Vilnius Regional Court on September 12, the criminal case against my client, Liam Campbell, was terminated, as the statute of limitations for holding him criminally liable expired on 21 January 2018,” she said.

“This is the decision of the court. The prosecution has appealed to the Court of Appeal of Lithuania, but the process of considering the appeal has not yet been started.

“Liam Campbell is currently in Ireland with the permission of the court.”

In a European Arrest Warrant, the Lithuanian authorities alleged that while acting in an organised terrorist group, the Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA), Campbell made arrangements to acquire a substantial number of firearms and explosives from Lithuania and smuggle them into Ireland.

It was further alleged that, at the end of 2006 to 2007, Campbell made arrangements with others to travel to Lithuania for the purposes of acquiring firearms and explosives, including automatic rifles, sniper guns, projectors, detonators, timers and TNT.

It was alleged he asked British cigarette smuggler Robert Jardine to set up a contact with a Lithuanian arms dealer to supply the weapons to the Real IRA. However, Jardine had been recruited years earlier to work for the British spy agency MI5.

Jardine, who has since gone into witness protection, alleged he met dissidents including Campbell to discuss the plot.

Campbell was arrested in May 2009 on a European Arrest Warrant in relation to the Lithuanian charges and spent four years in Maghaberry Prison in the North before being released in 2013 after the Belfast Recorders Court refused to approve his extradition, saying could he exposed to inhuman and degrading conditions while in prison in Lithuania.

He was arrested in Dundalk on December 2, 2016, on foot of the second European Arrest Warrant issued by Lithuanian authorities. It was the third attempt overall by Lithuania to seek his surrender.

Both the High Court and Court of Appeal had ordered that he be extradited to the Baltic state. However, he appealed those findings to the Supreme Court.

The length of time those appeals took meant the statute of limitations had expired by the time Campbell was finally extradited this year.

Liam Campbell’s brother Michael was found guilty of terror offences by a Lithuanian court in October 2011 following an MI5 sting operation in 2008, when he was recorded attempting to buy explosives and guns.

He was videoed meeting a person he thought was a Lithuanian arms dealer but was actually a Lithuanian security agent.

He was sentenced to 12 years behind bars but the conviction was overturned on appeal after a judge ruled there was insufficient evidence to deny statements that his actions had been provoked by undercover MI5 agents.

Liam Campbell had been a member of the Provisional IRA but left in 1997 and was a founding member of the Real IRA, which opposed the peace process.

He is no longer believed to be a member of the organisation, which morphed into the so-called New IRA in recent years.

With many thanks to the: Sunday World and Alan Sherry for the original story.

Follow this link to find out more on this story: Welcome Home Liam Campbell

Omagh bomb suspect Liam Campbell back in Ireland after terror charges dramatically dropped in Lithuania

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Dennis McFadden ‘may have been compromised to protect second agent’

 
Philip Ingram MBE, security expert.
Dennis McFadden may have been pulled out of the New IRA by his MI5 handlers to save a more valuable agent, according to one a leading counter insurgency expert.

It is almost a month since McFadden was last seen in his house in Glengormley, on the outskirts of Belfast, where he used a home bar bugged with listening devices to record dissident republicans. He went missing around two weeks before the arrest of nine members of the dissident republican political group Saoradh (rumoured to be the political wing of the New IRA) and a Palestinian doctor. Several months before his departure he organised two meetings in Co Tryone of the alleged leadership of the New IRA.

Follow this link to find out more: https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3406894286056988&id=100002093504519&set=a.147239732022476&source=48

The meetings at two houses, one close to Creggan and the second near Gortin in Co Tryone, were fitted with listening devices and cameras throughout. Fottage of the suspects recorded by MI5 at both meetings is said to be crystal clear, with all present easily identifiable. So cocky was McFadden, that he even left a review on the website Trip Advisor describing the property used to sting the senior dissidents as “exceptional”. “Would definitely recommend this house,” posted the agent who is now in protective custody with his wife and young child. Philip Ingram, pictured above, served more than 26 years in the British army, mostly in security and counter insurgency. He said the McFadden case would not be unusual, in that having agents bedded in for a long time was always the preferred option for the intelligence agencies. “Development and recruitment of agents is never for short-term effect. You’re asking them to bed in for many years of their life,” he said. 

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“These people don’t respond to an advert. They either volunteer or are compromised, although the latter tend not to last long. The ones who last the longest usually have a motivation,” Mr Ingram said. McFadden, a former special constable in Scotland, had more than likely volunteered rather than had been a serving officer or a compromised asset. “When the Met Police infiltrated animal rights protesters, they put police officers in and gave them deep cover,” he said. “But that is a very difficult and dangerous thing to manage. It is much easier to run an agent. The duty of care is easier than putting a card-carrying police officer in. McFadden would have been run out of Holywood. He would have had a principal handler and someone assigned to help the handler. 
“They would arrange meetings irregularly over a period of time and the agent can also ring if they have urgent information. “Because all this would have been set up beforehand, he would have known he was being compromised and that his time was up. “Pulling out a long-running, successful agent would only ever be done for two reasons – if he was already compromised or if there is someone else still in there – and so they would take out an agent who had run their course and leave the more valuable asset in place. “Looking at what we know so far, it was a brilliant operation  – a very successful intelligence operation.”

 

With many thanks to the: Irish News and Allison Morris for the original story 

Alleged New IRA leaders were secretly recorded planning acts of ‘mayhem’, court hears

Police officers carry out searches last month as part of Operation Arbacia
Police officers carry out searches last month as part of Operation Arbacia
The dissident republican organisation’s most senior members also discussed training, finance, acquisition and discipline within its ranks, it was claimed.
 

Details emerged as bail was refused to a grandmother facing terrorist charges following a major police and MI5 investigation.

She is among 10 people charged as part of Operation Arbacia, a surveillance-led offensive targeting the terrorist grouping’s activities.
 

Belfast Magistrates’ Court heard evidence in the case centres on audio and video recordings from alleged gatherings at properties in Sixmilecross and Omagh in February and July.

“These meetings were of the highest echelons on the IRA,” prosecution counsel submitted.

“They (involved) two senior members of the IRA Army Council addressing members of the IRA Executive.”

Opposing McCabe’s bid to be released from custody, he claimed the risk to the public posed by those in attendance was at the highest level.

“It was a group which is intent on mayhem and serious terrorist offences, meeting to prepare, direct and discuss those offences,” the prosecutor contended.

Defence lawyers have repeatedly raised concerns over potential entrapment and the role of a special agent in the operation.

But the prosecution insisted any assertions about the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) being used to obtain authorisation were incorrect.

Defence barrister Joseph O’Keefe argued that the reported role of a state agent would expose “flaws” in the case at an early stage.

He described McCabe as a mother and grandmother with a clear record who has lived in the Lurgan area all her life.

“She should be given the benefit of the doubt and would comply with any bail conditions,” Mr O’Keefe added.

However, District Judge Peter Magill held that the alleged offences were “as serious as one can envisage”.

He pointed out the prosecution claim McCabe took a “full and active part” in terrorist discussions.

“Those matters involved the discipline, the finances and the acquisition of material by which terrorist acts can be carried out in the context of an organisation which calls itself the IRA,” Mr Magill said.

“There are indications of connections with Middle Eastern organisations also, exploration of joint ventures and exploration of attracting finance and training.

“There are also discussions in respect of discipline within the organisation (and) there are discussions of terrorist acts in furtherance of the aims of at least one Middle Eastern organisation.”

Refusing bail, he remanded McCabe in custody to appear again later this month.
 
With many thanks to the: Belfast News Letter for the original story 
 
 
 
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