Witness accused of 'playing stupid'

A FORMER Garda sergeant who signed passport applications that led to false passports being issued to members of the IRA was accused of “playing stupid” at the Smithwick Tribunal yesterday.

Former sergeant Finbarr Hickey signed eight passport applications between January 1995 and April 1996, and was convicted and served a prison sentence.

Yesterday he told the tribunal he derived no benefit, financial or otherwise, from the affair, and had signed the applications at the behest of a former Dundalk colleague, Leo Colton. “I lost my job, my house, my pension, everything over it,” he said. The tribunal is investigating suggestions that members of the Garda colluded with the IRA in the murders of RUC officers Harry Breen and Bob Buchanan in 1989. The two were killed in an IRA ambush in south Armagh when returning from a visit to Dundalk Garda station.

Mr Hickey told Mary Laverty SC, for the tribunal, he did not know the passports were destined for IRA members – some of whom were wanted by the Garda – and would not have signed the papers if he had known.

Counsel for the PSNI Mark Robinson put it to Mr Hickey that he was an intelligent man who could “play stupid when it suits”. He said Mr Hickey had blamed Mr Colton and then admitted his guilt and engaged with a Garda investigation because he knew this would be taken into account in court.

But Mr Robinson said Mr Hickey was continuing to “play stupid” in continuing to insist he did not know for whom the passports were destined.

Solicitor James McGuill, for Mr Hickey, objected, saying the then inspector, now Assistant Garda Commissioner John O’Mahoney, had told the High Court the Garda was satisfied Mr Hickey did not know.