A FORMER police informant, who claims that security forces ignored advance warnings of the Omagh bombing, is prepared to appear as a defence witness in the trial of a man accused of the atrocity.

Evidence from Kevin Fulton, a former IRA bombmaker, could be used to cast doubt on prosecution claims that Sean Hoey was the only person capable of making that bomb. The prosecution of Hoey, which is due to open on September 6 in Belfast, could be the biggest murder trial in British legal history.

Fulton said yesterday that he would be happy to appear as a witness at the trial, if he was subpoenaed.

He is said to have met Peter Corrigan, the Belfast lawyer acting for Hoey, at the London offices of British Irish Rights Watch, a human rights group.

Hoey, 36, from Jonesborough, south Armagh, has been committed for trial for the murders of 29 people killed in the 1998 Real IRA atrocity. He faces 61 terrorist and explosive charges, all of which he denies.

At committal proceedings the prosecution alleged that the detonation system of the Omagh no-warning car bomb, which was contained in a lunchbox, was manufactured using methods distinctive to Hoey. They also produced a voice recognition expert who testified that she believed Hoey had telephoned in the bomb warning.

The defence team is expected to make a number of applications for disclosure when the trial opens and will seek to establish whether British or Irish intelligence agents or informants were involved in any way in the planning or execution of the bombing.

Fulton has told Nuala O’Loan, the Northern Ireland police ombudsman, that he warned his police handler that he had seen another bombmaker, referred to as Man A, mixing explosives shortly before the Omagh bombing.

There have been repeated suggestions that Man A, who now lives in Newry, was also an informant and was protected by the authorities. Similar suspicions surround another Real IRA bombmaker who cannot be named for legal reasons.

Paddy Dixon, the man who supplied the car used in the Omagh attack, was working for the gardai and is now living in England after being resettled. Dixon has been interviewed by the PSNI team who investigated the bombing but Fulton has not.

Dave Rupert, an American who infiltrated Real IRA on behalf of the FBI and MI5, is yet another agent on the periphery of the attack. Hoey’s defence team is expected to probe this complex intelligence background to establish whether any relevant facts have been withheld from them.

Such probing resulted in the acquittal of Denis Donaldson, another police agent, and others accused of taking part in the so-called Stormontgate IRA spy ring. When disclosures threatened to identify a police agent, a decision was taken to offer no evidence against the accused.

Fulton may insist on being subpoenaed in order to appear as a witness, fearing that he might endanger his good relations with the families of the Omagh bereaved if he is seen to co-operate willingly with a man accused of the bombing.

Michael Gallagher, whose son Aidan was killed in the blast, said he would have no objection. “I would like Hoey to have the best possible defence, because if he is convicted the verdict will be all the safer for that,” Gallagher said. “I don’t want a verdict where there is doubt. So if there are any doors that his defence team want to kick open, I certainly have no objection.

“Fulton is free to do whatever he thinks fit and I will not fall out with him. He was the first to open the door on Omagh; he let us know a lot more than we would otherwise have known.”

Corrigan said: “I have consulted senior counsel and we have no comment to make.”

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