Briefly noted

As this post was being composed in our mind, it said the following --

It seems to have escaped attention that with the focus on the evolving views of what the St Andrews Agreement actually meant, the chances of getting a conviction for the Omagh atrocity were seriously receding, both north and south of the border.

And there was going to be a link for that "south of the border" clause, to a story we know we had seen on Monday's RTE website, about the perjury trial of two gardai accused of forging notes relating to the interviews with Colm Murphy. But the story is gone -- the only Omagh story on RTE's website from Monday is similar to the BBC story above. But there is Google cache. So here, for the record, is the full story, as it appeared on the RTE website.

Two detective gardaí will go on trial this afternoon at the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, charged with perjury and forgery relating to evidence they gave at a trial five years ago.

Det Garda John Fahy, 53, from Glaslough, Co Monaghan, and Det Garda Liam Donnelly, 50, from Cavan town, gave evidence in 2001 at the trial of Colm Murphy who was accused of involvement in the 1998 Omagh bombing.

The two gardaí are accused of forging notes of an interview conducted by them with Mr Murphy in February 1999.

The are also accused of perjuring themselves by swearing that notes of the interview had not been re-written and that they were an accurate account of the interview.

The trial is expected to take two weeks. Almost 30 witnesses are due to be called, including more than a dozen members of An Garda Síochána.

We'd speculate that the trial suddenly got pulled in camera, except that the Irish Times is still reporting on it as normal, from Tuesday and Wednesday's paper. It is possible that RTE and the Irish Times are receiving different legal advice about the chance that the reporting on this trial could prejudice future Omagh prosecutions. And [update], Tuesday's Indo reported the expected opening of the trial, but does not have a followup story today.

UPDATE 23 OCTOBER: The case seemed to have disappeared into a reporting black hole until today's surprising news that the 2 have been acquitted before the trial got fully underway --

After three days of legal argument, Judge Desmond Hogan ruled the interview notes at the centre of the case and the technical analysis of them were inadmissible. He found the prosecution had been unable to establish a chain of custody in relation to the notes or the analysis of the notes.

Which doesn't say much about Garda procedures, or the prospects of using the notes in a future Omagh prosecution. Note also that the RTE story does not provide a "related stories" link, indicating that the previous story has indeed been disappeared. And [final update] Tuesday's Irish Times is a little clearer about what happened; the legal arguments took place in the absence of the jury, suggesting that the media stopped reporting on the case to avoid prejudicing the jury if the case resumed.