GARDAI believe that members of the gang suspected of being responsible for the murder of the journalist Veronica Guerin are engaging in a self-publicity campaign before claiming that their chances of a fair trial are endangered.
At least three members of the gang have given media interviews in which they have denied involvement in the murder while admitting they, are suspects. In the latest development, a member of the gang has given a radio interview for RTE which is due to be broadcast on the Pat Kenny Show today. It was not clear last night if the interview would be broadcast.
The man also gave an interview to a freelance journalist and this story was offered to daily newspapers yesterday.
Sources close to the Guerin investigation team say they have been aware for some time that the gang has been receiving advice but there is no suspicion that a qualified lawyer is involved.
While there is some legal basis for a defence based on adverse publicity, there is also recent case history in which the courts have refused to take into account publicity surrounding a case as a reason for dropping charges. A qualified lawyer would be aware of this.
However, the tide of publicity surrounding the case has worried investigators. Aside from the interviews, there has been extensive publicity, including barely disguised pictures of alleged suspects in a number of publications.
Some foreign newspapers have directly accused the suspects in the murder based on the allegations in the Irish media.
The latest Guerin murder suspect to give a media interview also denies responsibility for the murder of a Dublin builder, Mr Paddy Shanahan, in 1993.
Mr Shanahan had become a successful builder and property developer and is believed to have been shot dead for refusing an extortion threat.
Like the previously interviewed suspects, he emphatically denies any involvement in the Guerin murder and says he was with a friend when the killing took place. He admits he was previously an armed robber but claims he has forsaken his criminal past. He says he "never laid a hand on a woman".
He also suggests there is a conspiracy by gardai and sections of the media to frame him for the Guerin murder and to link him with the INLA, the Irish National Liberation Army, whose political wing recently accused Ms Guerin of inciting crime and warned journalists to be "prepared to suffer the consequences" of "setting up" any of its members.
Gardai do not claim this man is actively involved with the INLA but say he had links with it in the 1970s before he became a freelance robber and gunman.
Sources close to the investigation said yesterday that they are still seeking at least five Dublin criminals who are living abroad. ,No publicity would deflect the investigators from this course, they said.
The leader of the gang suspected of killing the journalist, and his chief associate, left the State immediately after the killing but both subsequently returned for short visits. The gang leader is in prison abroad and the other man was last heard of running a bar in a Spanish holiday resort.
However last autumn, in a significant development in their investigation, the gardai identified all the principal figures in the murder. Since then, two men who were directly involved in the killing and a third man who provided the vehicles involved have disappeared. There have been various reported sightings of them in England, Spain, the Canaries and the Netherlands.
The gardai would be eager to arrest and question any of the men if they returned to this jurisdiction, a senior officer said.