The Court of Criminal Appeal has reserved judgment on the appeal by Brian Meehan against his conviction for the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin 10 years ago.
After a two-day hearing before the three-judge appeal court, the hearing concluded yesterday and Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, presiding, said the court would reserve judgment.
Meehan (41), from Crumlin in Dublin, is the only person serving a sentence for Ms Guerin's murder on June 26th, 1996. He was jailed for life by the non-jury Special Criminal Court in July 1999 and also given concurrent jail sentences of 20, 12, 10 and five years for drugs and firearms offences. Meehan appealed against his conviction on all the offences.
The Special Criminal Court found, after a 31-day trial, that Meehan was the driver of the motorbike from which a gunman shot Guerin six times as she sat in her car stopped at traffic lights on the Naas Road.
In the appeal, Meehan's counsel, Patrick Gageby SC, argued that the trial court should not have accepted evidence of traffic between Meehan's mobile phone and the mobile phone of Russell Warren on the day of the murder as corroboration of Warren's evidence.
Warren, who is in the witness protection programme, told the trial that he followed Guerin from Naas District Court to Clondalkin; was in contact by mobile phone with Meehan, who was the driver of a stolen motorbike; and saw the pillion passenger shoot Guerin.
Opposing the appeal, Peter Charleton SC, for the DPP, submitted yesterday that the pattern and timing of the telephone calls between Meehan and Warren were corroborative of Warren's testimony.
He said there were calls between Warren and Meehan up to six minutes before the murder at 12.54pm on June 26th, 1996, and after that there was only one call between them at 13.23pm. Apart from that one call, all Warren's calls after the murder were with John Gilligan, counsel said. Gilligan, who was cleared of the Guerin murder, is serving a 20-year jail sentence for importing drugs.
Mr Charleton said there was evidence at the trial of threats made by John Gilligan in the presence of Brian Meehan. He said Juliet Bowden, wife of gang member Charles Bowden, who also gave evidence for the prosecution in the Meehan trial, had given evidence that on April 11th, 1997, she was in a pub and was asked to call Meehan.
The call was recorded by gardaí and it involved Meehan threatening Ms Bowden in the context of Charles Bowden coming back from Britain and going to the gardaí, counsel said.
In reply to Mr Charleton, Mr Gageby said he accepted that the telephone traffic evidence supported Warren's evidence. However, he argued, it did not implicate Meehan in the commission of the murder.