WE all want those connected with causing the Omagh massacre brought to justice as soon as possible, but we bend the rule of law at our peril.

Events last February illustrated the danger of relying solely on the word of a senior police officer to have someone suspected of membership of a proscribed organisation thrown in jail.

The UDP had been ejected from the multi-party negotiations when its parent organisation, the UDA, had been implicated in a series of sectarian killings in Belfast. Thereafter, the RUC, in a welter of publicity, briefed the media that three men, said to be IRA members, had been involved in the shootings of two drug-dealers, one Catholic, one Loyalist. The impression was built up that these three were undoubtedly guilty.

Solicitors for the men averred that there was no forensic evidence and that no weapon had been traced. The men had not incriminated themselves, despite one claiming he had been assaulted at Castlereagh interrogation centre, and the circumstantial evidence was threadbare.

None the less, the RUC Chief Constable, Ronnie Flanagan, was adamant that he need look no further for the culprits. He briefed the Irish Premier, Bertie Ahern, the Northern Ireland Secretary, Mo Mowlam, and Tony Blair to that effect and Sinn Fein were duly suspended from the talks. Unionists were mollified and the Loyalists kept on board.

Three weeks ago, with none of the publicity attendant on their arrests, all three men had their case thrown out and were released, with all charges dropped. They are now considering compensation claims and one for assault.

The cases of the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four showed how police officers will bend the law under pressure to get results. To that can be added the mindset of a judiciary in which a Lord Chief Justice can emphatically state that the word of a police officer must be accepted. The RUC rely heavily on informants and these have frequently been shown, especially the so-called ''supergrasses'', to tell the RUC just what they want to hear.

Arthur Valentine,

26 Abbeyhill Crescent, Edinburgh.

August 26.

TONY Blair correctly rules out punitive action against self-confessed perpetrators of the Omagh outrage other than by democratic means. How then can he reconcile his decision to leap to support Clinton's bully-boy, unreasoned, and illegal adventure in Afghanistan and Sudan? If guilt must be proved before punishment in Northern Ireland the same must apply on the world stage. Otherwise we ourselves become terrorists.

A G Cochrane,

9 Morar Crescent, Bishopton.

August 24.

WHILE I can well understand and sympathise with Eugene Cairns's frustration, anger, and disgust so passionately expressed in his letter on the Omagh atrocity (August 22), capital punishment is not the answer, or even part of the answer.

Aside from the sound moral arguments against taking a life for a life, to introduce capital punishment now to Northern Ireland would be counter-productive. Far from creating a deterrence it would only serve to strengthen terrorism by creating ''martyrs for the cause''.

Worse, as the heart-breaking and seemingly endless succession of serious miscarriages of justice now being acknowledged makes clear, our criminal justice system, being human, makes far too many mistakes to be ever again entrusted with the death penalty.

The response of those politicians Mr Cairns cites - McAleese, Trimble, Blair - has been measured and responsible, and they are to be commended for it. Peace, and the principles of justice, are too precious to be thrown away by inappropriate knee-jerk reactions.

Rev L A Purcell,

St Peter's Church, 46 Hyndland Street,

Glasgow. August 22.