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Car bomb blasts Ulster courthouse

"Sheer miracle": the car bomb outside a Newry courthouse damaged buildings but no one was injured
12 April 2012

Police were today combing through the wreckage of a car bomb that exploded outside a courthouse in Northern Ireland.

Investigators said it was a "sheer miracle" that no one was killed or injured in the blast in Newry. Chief Superintendent Alisdair Robinson said: "We could have been looking today at multiple deaths."

The explosion happened at 10.37pm, 17 minutes after a telephone warning that said it would go off in half an hour. Buildings in New Street and the gates of the courthouse were damaged in the attack which is thought to be the work of dissident republicans opposed to the peace process.

It is thought to be the first time a large car bomb has exploded in Northern Ireland since an attack on Stewartstown police station in 2000. Police had been bracing themselves for a response to the Hillsborough Agreement, signed just over two weeks ago.

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