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An MI5 agent's credibility is at the centre of an appeal by four republicans accused of being behind the Omagh bomb atrocity, a court heard today.
David Rupert infiltrated the Real IRA and provided evidence against the four men, who are appealing against a historic civil case judgment that held them liable for the massacre.
His intelligence for MI5 was used in the civil action against the Real IRA founder Michael McKevitt and three other men - Liam Campbell, Colm Murphy and Seamus Daly.
They were found to be responsible for the terrorist attack by a judge in a landmark civil case brought by victims' families at Belfast high court in June 2009. The judge recommended that they pay £1.6m in compensation to the victims' families.
All four who were named in court as leading Real IRA activists have started their appeal against that judgment in the court of appeal in Belfast.

It has long been assumed that China is surreptitiously building up its gold reserves through buying local production. Russia is another major gold miner where the Central bank has been purchasing gold from another state entity, Gokhran, which is the marketing arm and central repository for the country's mined gold production. Now it has been reported by Bloomberg that the Venezuelan Central Bank director, Jose Khan, has said that country will boost its gold reserves through purchasing more than half the gold produced from its rapidly growing domestic gold mining industry.
In Russia, for example, Gokhran sold some 30 tonnes of gold to the Central Bank in an internal accounting exercise late last year. In part, so it was said at the time, the direct sale was made rather than placing the metal on the open market and perhaps adversely affecting the gold price.
China is currently the world's largest gold producer and last year it confirmed it had raised its own Central Bank gold holdings by more than 450 tones over the previous six years. Mineweb.com - The world's premier mining and mining investment website Venezuela taking own gold production into Central Bank reserves - GOLD NEWS | Mineweb