Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt yesterday lost his appeal against his conviction for directing terrorism.McKevitt had argued his conviction in 2003 by the non-jury Special Criminal Court was unsafe because of the unreliability of the central prosecution witness, FBI agent David Rupert.
However, in its reserved judgment yesterday, the three-judge Court of Criminal Appeal said the court was entitled to conclude Mr Rupert was a credible witness and to accept his evidence. It held the court was correct to convict McKevitt for directing terrorism. The appeal court also held that all matters relating to disclosure in the trial were properly dealt with by the trial court.
McKevitt, who was in court for the decision, smiled at his wife Bernadette Sands McKevitt and her sister, Marcella Sands, both sisters of dead IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands.
McKevitt (54), Beech Park, Blackrock, Co Louth, was jailed for 20 years by the Special Criminal Court in August 2003 after he was convicted of directing the activities of a terrorist organisation between August 29th, 1999, and October 23rd, 2000. He was the first person to be convicted in the State for the offence, which was introduced after the Real IRA bomb attack in Omagh in 1998 in which 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins, died. McKevitt also received a six-year concurrent prison sentence for membership of the Real IRA.
The four-day appeal last month centred on issues concerning the reliability of Rupert, who infiltrated the Real IRA and attended army council meetings with McKevitt. The appeal court was told Mr Rupert had been paid $1.4 million by the FBI and £400,000 by the British Security Service. McKevitt's lawyers argued there was no full and proper disclosure of all material relating to Mr Rupert and the court should not have found he was a credible witness whose evidence could be safely relied upon.
Giving the appeal court's 64-page judgment, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns said this was a criminal trial without precedent. The charge of directing the activities of an unlawful organisation was the first such charge to be brought here under an amendment to the Offences Against the State Act.
The trial was also one which required disclosure of documents from overseas intelligence agencies in the US and Britain because the main evidence in the case was that of Mr Rupert, a US citizen, the judge said. Mr Rupert was subjected to cross-examination of virtually unprecedented length, which focused almost entirely on the witness's credibility and which concluded on day 20 of the trial, he noted.
Dealing with the issue of disclosure to the defence of all relevant evidence, Mr Justice Kearns said the appeal court was satisfied there was an adequate description of the material which was available from overseas agencies, the FBI and the British Security Service (BSS). He said "a massive amount" of material, amounting to 2,300 e-mails and four binder folders of documents, was furnished. Those documents covered myriad aspects of Mr Rupert's past life, his relations with the FBI and BSS and the relationship between those agencies and the Garda Síochána.
It seemed to the appeal court the defence was in possession of more than adequate material for a cross-examination, having as they did material about Mr Rupert spanning three decades which related to many questionable episodes in his past life, the judge said. On the credibility of Mr Rupert, the judge said this case was agreed to be without precedent in Irish legal history and his 17-day presence in the witness box was reflective of that fact. Over the course of 14 days, Mr Rupert was cross-examined on virtually every aspect and particular of his personal life by eminent senior counsel before a court of judges with wide experience of criminal trials.
The trial court had, in its approach to the narrative history of Mr Rupert's past life, his involvement with republican circles in Ireland and his knowledge of McKevitt, conducted a "careful and balanced assessment of the evidence", he said.
Mr Justice Kearns said the appeal court was "quite satisfied" there were no grounds for any suggestion that Rupert was either a "supergrass" or "accomplice" in the criminal allegations levelled against McKevitt.
Mr Rupert had taken no oath of membership in any illegal organisation and the terms of his contract with the FBI expressly precluded his participation in criminal activities.