A three-page speech found inside a bar where loyalist paramilitaries were preparing to stage a so-called show of strength was in the handwriting of top loyalist Ihab Shoukri, a Belfast court heard today.
It was examined by an expert who also studied a number of documents signed and filled in by Mr Shoukri, it was alleged.
He was arrested along with 17 other men when police raided the pub in March this year, the night before loyalists were preparing to gather.
Police found abandoned balaclavas, gloves and bomber jackets, the court heard.
Mr Shoukri (32) of Westland Drive, Belfast, was charged today with membership of the Ulster Defence Association and Ulster Freedom Fighters as well as professing to be a member of a proscribed organisation.
The court heard that when charged Mr Shoukri replied: "I have been recently acquitted of that charge. I have to ask whose agenda is being served here?"
Mr Shoukri and the others were detained on the stairwell of the Alexandra Bar on the city's York Road on the night of March 2nd this year.
Police had received intelligence that a loyalist show of strength was due to take place the following evening and when they raided the bar they also found discarded surgical gloves as well as a speech which it was claimed was in the handwriting of Mr Shoukri.
The court heard from a Crown lawyer that it related to the preparation of an event on the premises, tickets as well as plaques that were to be handed out to people whose names had also been listed.
A handwriting expert was called in to examine the speech and later when Mr Shoukri was interviewed he stayed silent, even when he was challenged about media coverage which alleged he was a leading member of the UDA in North Belfast.
Under cross-examination a detective sergeant who questioned Mr Shoukri revealed that 11 separate documents, including a passport application, a driving licence application, DHSS and Housing Executive forms with his national insurance number and date of birth and signed by Mr Shoukri had been examined by the analyst.
A Crown lawyer said inquiries into the case were ongoing but police were not in a position to disclose what they were at this stage. The speech he said made reference to the history of vigilantes and glorified the history of the UDA. He added: "The forensic evidence is unequivocal that this was in Ihab Shoukri's own handwriting."
Mr Shoukri had been charged before with UDA and UFF membership but those charges were withdrawn earlier this year. Mr Shoukri's lawyer, Charles MacCreanor, challenged the court to free his client.
He said a ruling by a former Lord Chief Justice in a case against Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams, who had been accused of IRA membership, had been thrown out on the grounds that a speech he had made at a party Ard Fheis was not sufficient to convict him.