A CORK man who was arrested during the Garda investigation into a money-laundering operation involving the proceeds of the 2004 Northern Bank robbery in Belfast was jailed for three years and three months for IRA membership by the Special Criminal Court in Dublin yesterday.
The court convicted Tom Hanlon (43), a father of four and self-employed painter, of Pembroke Row, Passage West, Co Cork, of IRA membership on February 16th, 2005. He had denied the charge.
Convicting Hanlon, Mr Justice Paul Butler, presiding, said the court was satisfied Hanlon was “intimately involved in highly suspicious financial transactions involving monies which have been proved to have included proceeds from the bank robbery in Belfast”. But, the judge added, Hanlon had not been charged with a money-laundering offence, and did not have the opportunity to defend himself against such an accusation in court.
The judge said the court accepted the belief of Det Chief Supt Tony Quilter that Hanlon was an IRA member on February 16th, 2005.
That belief had been corroborated by Hanlon’s failure to answer material questions during his questioning by gardaí.
The court heard that Cork chef Don Bullman, who was found in possession of €94,000 in a Daz washing powder box, had been jailed for four years in 2007 for IRA membership on the same date as Hanlon was found guilty of membership.
Mr Justice Butler said the court had to be consistent, and he was taking nine months off the four-year sentence for Hanlon because he was not prosecuted until recently, even though the evidence against him was available at the same time as the evidence against Bullman in 2007.
During the five-day trial the court heard evidence from Mr Quilter that he believed on the basis of confidential information that Hanlon was an IRA member in February 2005.
The court also heard gardaí found a Sinn Féin chequebook, photocopies of “joke” Northern Bank notes with images of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, two cheques for the Colombia Three campaign, and other documents in Hanlon’s bedroom.
Gardaí who carried out searches in the Cork area in February 2005 found £2.4 million sterling in seven bags in a locked cupboard in a house owned by financial adviser Ted Cunningham.
DNA samples taken from Hanlon matched DNA taken from the zip handle of one of the money bags.
The court was told that at least £26 million sterling was stolen from the Northern Bank in Belfast in December 2004.