MAZE PRISON escapee Brendan McFarlane was arrested south of the Border by a senior Garda officer just hours before the Northern Ireland secretary of state Mo Mowlam was due to sign final papers releasing him from parole, the Special Criminal Court heard yesterday.
Mr McFarlane is on trial in connection with the IRA’s violent ransom kidnapping of supermarket executive Don Tidey in 1983.
Supt James Sheridan said that he arrested Mr McFarlane on a bus travelling from Dublin to Belfast in 1998 after he received confidential information that a man fitting his description was in the State.
Supt Sheridan said he was aware that Mr McFarlane was being sought for interview by gardaí in connection with the kidnapping of Don Tidey and the possession of firearms at Derrada Wood in December 1983.
He said he received a phone call from Det Chief Supt Dermot Jennings, now an assistant commissioner, at 11am on January 5th, 1998.
Following that call, he went to a permanent Garda checkpoint at Mountpleasant, Dromad, near the Border where the Dublin to Belfast bus was stopped at 11.45 am.
He said he boarded the bus with two other gardaí and saw a man fitting Mr McFarlane’s description.
He asked him to step out of the bus, he placed his hand on his arm and arrested him for possession of firearms at Derrada Wood on December 16th, 1983. Mr McFarlane made no reply when arrested. He was then brought to Dundalk Garda station.
Cross examined by Hugh Hartnett SC, defending, the superintendent said he was “surprised” when he received a phone call from Det Chief Supt Jennings that the call related to Mr McFarlane.
He said he was not aware that Mr McFarlane had been in the State on other dates. He had no knowledge that the Department of Justice was aware that Mr McFarlane had been in Donegal four years prior to his arrest.
Mr McFarlane has pleaded not guilty to falsely imprisoning Mr Tidey between November 24th and December 16th, 1983..
The trial continues today.