MCKEVITT WITNESS GIVES DRAMATIC EVIDENCE
McKevitt witness continues to give dramatic evidence
THE star witness in the trial of alleged Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt continues to give melodramatic evidence at the Special Criminal Court in Dublin.
To date FBI agent David Rupert has told how he tried to recruit a Mafia boss during a failed attempt to set up an off shore casino which could have laundered illegal money and how he, a 6ft 5in tall 20-stone informer, tried to become a wrestler in a bid to earn money.
The court also heard how a new dissident republican paramilitary organisation recruited a former French Foreign Legion weapons expert to be used in a plot to murder British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
53-year-old McKevitt of Dundalk, Co Louth denies directing the Real IRA and being a member of the dissident republican organisation which killed 29 people in the August 1988 Omagh bomb atrocity.
The trial of alleged Real IRA leader McKevitt also heard how he wanted the group's first strike to create even more havoc than the Omagh bomb atrocity.
FBI agent Rupert, the key prosecution witness, said McKevitt also revealed plans to launch up to six attacks on M16 headquarters in London in one year. McKevitt told him he was the former provisional IRA quarter master and had plundered its arms dumps for weapons suitable for his new terror offensive, it was alleged.
Even though it was claimed the Omagh outrage had deeply distressed McKevitt, Rupert said the alleged terror boss planned to form a new dissident umbrella organisation made up by the Real IRA, up the Continuity IRA, the Irish National Liberation Army and defecting members of the Provisional IRA.
He first met McKevitt in 1999 but claimed that the following year, after Real IRA bomb attacks on Hammersmith and a rocket strike at M16 headquarters in London, McKevitt sketched out plans to intensify the campaign. "He told me a rate of about four or six M16-type attacks per year was a good rate," Rupert told the court.
Even though the spy work took him right to the heart of dissident republican terrorist activity, Rupert said he never intended to give evidence in public. "I knew that at such a time as I agreed to testify that it would change my life and my family's life forever. I wasn't really interested in that."
After expressing his fears to his FBI handlers, they agreed to draw up a new contract in which his monthly payments were increased from $2,500 to $4,500 (�1,500-�2,600).
Earlier this week the court was told how bankrupted Rupert discussed setting up a gambling bank off Florida with a man who claimed to have connections with former Chilean and Panamanian dictators Augusto Pinochet and Manuel Noriega.
At times the cross-examination got heated as the defence counsel challenged the witness to 'get real' and Rupert retorted he might use the barrister's 'spin' for a future book.
Previously Rupert's background had come under scrutiny by defence lawyers.
He was paid a total of 1.25 million dollars by the FBI and MI5 to infiltrate dissident republican organisations in Ireland during the 1960's.
Earlier the court heard how Rupert suffered a financial 'catastrophe' when he tried to sell his home in Massena, New York. Questioned by defence lawyers he confirmed that a bank had taken civil action over a substantial loan he had failed to repay.
Asked if an allegation of fraud had ever been made against him, he said, he could not remember, adding that there were two sides to any story and he had accused the bank of dishonesty.
He later confirmed that he had struck a deal with the Chicago Sun to write a book about his undercover work once the trial is over.
The trial continues.
BUNDORAN REPUBLICAN REJECTS COURT CLAIMS
Meanwhile Bundoran auctioneer and former publican, Joe O'Neill, a well known Republican Sinn Fein member, has rejected categorically allegations made against him by the main witness in the McKevitt trial, David Rupert.
The claims were made last week in the three-judge, non-jury Special Criminal Court.
This week, Mr O'Neill stressed that he, Joe O'Neill, was not on trial, yet his name had been mentioned numerous times in court:
'What this man, David Rupert, has stated in completely untrue. A man like him would have no trouble making false accusations for $1,250,000 (the figure given by Rupert himself), not to mention the thousands of pounds more from the British MI5 and MI6.
"The Court allowed this man to give false evidence about me and never informed me that they would be made in court. Where are the so-called Civil Rights in this 26-county State?".
Mr O'Neill submitted that Rupert's evidence was a ploy to tarnish and attack those who held the true Republican's principle.
Speaking at the week-end, Mr O'Neill said he had met David Rupert around 1994 through business dealings: 'He was looking to buy a house or a pub in the greater Bundoran area. I found him all right till this happened.
"We would have talked politics in general. He gave me the impression of being very sympathetic to the Irish cause because of the fact he had American Indian blood and how they had been treated - which nobody could deny.
"He offered to collect money for prisoners over in America. Sometime, towards the year 2000 he started trying to tell people like myself what we should be doing, pushing for us to join with the Real IRA.
"I thought that was a wee bit highhanded for a man not long over here and, as the fellow says, I felt there was 'something not right' wrong with him. But, don't get me wrong, it still didn't hit me that he was an informer".
THE star witness in the trial of alleged Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt continues to give melodramatic evidence at the Special Criminal Court in Dublin.
To date FBI agent David Rupert has told how he tried to recruit a Mafia boss during a failed attempt to set up an off shore casino which could have laundered illegal money and how he, a 6ft 5in tall 20-stone informer, tried to become a wrestler in a bid to earn money.
The court also heard how a new dissident republican paramilitary organisation recruited a former French Foreign Legion weapons expert to be used in a plot to murder British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
53-year-old McKevitt of Dundalk, Co Louth denies directing the Real IRA and being a member of the dissident republican organisation which killed 29 people in the August 1988 Omagh bomb atrocity.
The trial of alleged Real IRA leader McKevitt also heard how he wanted the group's first strike to create even more havoc than the Omagh bomb atrocity.
FBI agent Rupert, the key prosecution witness, said McKevitt also revealed plans to launch up to six attacks on M16 headquarters in London in one year. McKevitt told him he was the former provisional IRA quarter master and had plundered its arms dumps for weapons suitable for his new terror offensive, it was alleged.
Even though it was claimed the Omagh outrage had deeply distressed McKevitt, Rupert said the alleged terror boss planned to form a new dissident umbrella organisation made up by the Real IRA, up the Continuity IRA, the Irish National Liberation Army and defecting members of the Provisional IRA.
He first met McKevitt in 1999 but claimed that the following year, after Real IRA bomb attacks on Hammersmith and a rocket strike at M16 headquarters in London, McKevitt sketched out plans to intensify the campaign. "He told me a rate of about four or six M16-type attacks per year was a good rate," Rupert told the court.
Even though the spy work took him right to the heart of dissident republican terrorist activity, Rupert said he never intended to give evidence in public. "I knew that at such a time as I agreed to testify that it would change my life and my family's life forever. I wasn't really interested in that."
After expressing his fears to his FBI handlers, they agreed to draw up a new contract in which his monthly payments were increased from $2,500 to $4,500 (�1,500-�2,600).
Earlier this week the court was told how bankrupted Rupert discussed setting up a gambling bank off Florida with a man who claimed to have connections with former Chilean and Panamanian dictators Augusto Pinochet and Manuel Noriega.
At times the cross-examination got heated as the defence counsel challenged the witness to 'get real' and Rupert retorted he might use the barrister's 'spin' for a future book.
Previously Rupert's background had come under scrutiny by defence lawyers.
He was paid a total of 1.25 million dollars by the FBI and MI5 to infiltrate dissident republican organisations in Ireland during the 1960's.
Earlier the court heard how Rupert suffered a financial 'catastrophe' when he tried to sell his home in Massena, New York. Questioned by defence lawyers he confirmed that a bank had taken civil action over a substantial loan he had failed to repay.
Asked if an allegation of fraud had ever been made against him, he said, he could not remember, adding that there were two sides to any story and he had accused the bank of dishonesty.
He later confirmed that he had struck a deal with the Chicago Sun to write a book about his undercover work once the trial is over.
The trial continues.
BUNDORAN REPUBLICAN REJECTS COURT CLAIMS
Meanwhile Bundoran auctioneer and former publican, Joe O'Neill, a well known Republican Sinn Fein member, has rejected categorically allegations made against him by the main witness in the McKevitt trial, David Rupert.
The claims were made last week in the three-judge, non-jury Special Criminal Court.
This week, Mr O'Neill stressed that he, Joe O'Neill, was not on trial, yet his name had been mentioned numerous times in court:
'What this man, David Rupert, has stated in completely untrue. A man like him would have no trouble making false accusations for $1,250,000 (the figure given by Rupert himself), not to mention the thousands of pounds more from the British MI5 and MI6.
"The Court allowed this man to give false evidence about me and never informed me that they would be made in court. Where are the so-called Civil Rights in this 26-county State?".
Mr O'Neill submitted that Rupert's evidence was a ploy to tarnish and attack those who held the true Republican's principle.
Speaking at the week-end, Mr O'Neill said he had met David Rupert around 1994 through business dealings: 'He was looking to buy a house or a pub in the greater Bundoran area. I found him all right till this happened.
"We would have talked politics in general. He gave me the impression of being very sympathetic to the Irish cause because of the fact he had American Indian blood and how they had been treated - which nobody could deny.
"He offered to collect money for prisoners over in America. Sometime, towards the year 2000 he started trying to tell people like myself what we should be doing, pushing for us to join with the Real IRA.
"I thought that was a wee bit highhanded for a man not long over here and, as the fellow says, I felt there was 'something not right' wrong with him. But, don't get me wrong, it still didn't hit me that he was an informer".
Further Information
Publisher: ULSTER HERALD
Ref: UH/1551
Published Date: 03-Jul-03
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