A journalist told the Special Criminal Court yesterday he had "the most bizarre conversation of his life" with murder accused Mr John Gilligan a month after the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin.
Mr Paul Williams, crime correspondent with the Sunday World, said he received a call on his mobile phone on July 24th, 1996 from Mr Gilligan. Asked by Mr Justice O'Donovan what conversation he had with Mr Gilligan, Mr Williams replied: "In my lifetime and my career as a journalist, it was one of the most bizarre conversations I ever had with anybody."
Mr Williams said he contacted Mr Gilligan's wife, Geraldine, after the Guerin murder and was given a mobile phone number to ring. On June 28th, two days after the murder, he rang the number and asked for John Gilligan. The man who answered said he was John Gilligan.
Mr Williams said he had a conversation that lasted 45 to 50 minutes with Mr Gilligan and said he thought he gave Mr Gilligan a number to contact him at.
On July 24th, 1996, he received a call from the same person he had spoken to on June 28th. He told Mr Tom O'Connell SC, prosecuting, the voice was the same.
Mr Williams was shown a record which detailed a phone call between his mobile and another mobile phone on July 24th, 1996, at 13.25 which lasted six minutes and 15 seconds.
Cross-examined by Mr Gilligan's counsel, Mr Terence McDonald QC, Mr Williams agreed he had written an article about a potential witness in the trial while knowing he himself was going to be a witness.
Mr Williams said senior counsel analysed every article that appeared in the Sunday World for possible libel or contempt of court. He disagreed with a suggestion by Mr McDonald that the Sunday World took an attitude of taking a chance and making the money anyway.
He said he had received a letter from protected witness Charles Bowden asking him to visit him in Arbour Hill prison. "I went up for the visit and I wasn't allowed in and that was the end of it," he said.
Asked by Mr McDonald if a film script about Bowden's "romantic life" had been mentioned, Mr Williams said the first he ever heard of a film script was at a previous trial.
Earlier, Mr John Darcy said that he saw the pillion passenger on a motorcycle take a gun from the pocket of his jacket and fire shots into a red car stopped at traffic lights on the Naas Road.
He said after the shooting the gunman put the gun in his right hand pocket and the motorcycle "scooted off" straight up the Naas dual carriageway and he followed it. The motorcycle then went up the Belgard Road.
Mr Gilligan (48), with addresses at Corduff Avenue, Blanchardstown, Dublin; Jess brook Equestrian Centre, Mucklon, Enfield, Co Kildare; and HM Prison Belmarsh, London, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Sunday Independent crime reporter Veronica Guerin (37), at Naas Road, Clondalkin, Dublin on June 26th, 1996. He also denies 15 other counts alleging the importation of cannabis and firearms and ammunition offences.
The trial continues today.