IN/0696

Director' of Real IRA is jailed

THE former director of operations of the Real IRA was sentenced to eight years imprisonment by the Special
Criminal Court in Dublin yesterday for membership of an illegal organisation. The court suspended the final
18 months of the sentence and ordered that the sentence should date from May 1 2001 to take into account the time Liam
Campbell has already spent in prison. Campbell is one of five men being sued by relatives of the victims of the 1998 Omagh
bomb in which 29 people were killed and over 300 injured. The £10 million claim against the five men and the Real IRA is due
to start next January at the High Court in Belfast. Liam Campbell (41), a married father-of-two, of Upper was convicted last week on two ber of an illegal organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Oglaigh na hEireann, otherwise the IRA on separate dates in 2000 and 2001.
He was convicted of membership on October 3 2000 and July 29 2001 and given two four years sentences to run consecutively. Campbell had pleaded not guilty to both charges but his legal team did not challenge the prosecution evidence and made no submissions on his behalf.
The Criminal Assets Bureau last year secured a judgment of over £800,000 against Campbell for suspected revenue offences.
Sentencing Campbell, Mr Justice Richard Johnson, presiding at the non-jury court, said: "This is an extremely serious offence because Chief Superintendent Peter Maguire said of the IRA known as the Real IRA."
The judge said that Campbell had not contested the evidence and the court would treat the offences as equivalent to guilty pleas.
He said the court had taken into account the fact that Campbell had saved the court's time and expense and had freed up the court to deal with pressing matters.
The court also took into account the fact that Campbell is married with two small children and his commitment to his family. The court sentenced him to four years imprisonment for the first offence.
Dealing with the second membership offence, Mr Justice Johnson said that because it had been committed while Campbell was on bail, under Section 11 of the Criminal must be consecutive to the first.
The court sentenced him to four years imprisonment for the second offence but suspended the final 18 months and ordered the sentence to date from May 1 2001 to take into account time already spent in custody.
Last week Chief Superintendent Maguire told the court that Campbell was convicted in October 2001 for the membership charge relating to October, 2000 and had been sentenced to five years imprisonment but the Court of Criminal Appeal had quashed the conviction in December last year.
Mr Maguire said Campbell had been on bail on the original charge when he was arrested at the Neptune Beach Hotel in Co Meath in July 2001.
Mr Maguire told prosecuting counsel Tom O' Connell that Campbell adhered to the group the Real IRA broke away from the Provisional IRA in 1997 because it did not agree with the peace process. He said that Campbell had no previous convictions.
Cross-examined by Campbell's counsel Michael O' Higgins, Mr Maguire said Campbell had left the republican wing in Portlaoise prison and was now in an area known as "the basement".
The court also heard that Campbell was one of four men arrested at the Neptune Beach Hotel in Bettystown, Co Meath in July 2001.
Special Branch detectives who raided a room in the hotel found Campbell and two other men seated at a table.
A fourth man who arrived during the Garda search was also arrested. Gardai found a stun gun hidden in a sports bag during the search