Alleged Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt has lost his Supreme Court appeal against his 2003 conviction and 20-year jail term for directing terrorism.
McKevitt, from Blackrock in Co Louth, claimed he did not get a fair trial because his lawyers were not supplied with full information about the chief prosecution witness, FBI agent David Rupert.
But the five-judge Supreme Court sitting today ruled that the 2003 conviction against the 54-year-old was safe and dismissed the appeal.
McKevitt was appealing a 2005 decision by the Court of Criminal Appeal (CCA) to uphold the original Special Criminal Court conviction and jail sentence.
His lawyers claimed during the appeal that Mr Rupert had been allegedly investigated for fraud in 1974 and 1994 which led to him becoming an informer for the FBI.
This information should have been disclosed to the court during the trial, McKevitt’s lawyers argued.
In 2003, McKevitt became the first person in the State to be convicted under new legislation of directing terrorist activities.
PA