An appeal by two men against their convictions for the gangland murder of Limerick man Kieran Keane will be heard next month.
However, Desmond Dundon and Anthony McCarthy yesterday lost an application to be allowed to introduce additional evidence for that appeal which, they claimed, would support their alibis. The appeal will proceed on January 23rd.
Kieran Keane was shot dead in late January 2003 after being abducted with his nephew Owen Treacy. In December 2003, Dundon (23), Hyde Road, Limerick and McCarthy (23), Fairgreen, Garryowen, Co Limerick, were convicted with three others of the murder of Mr Keane at Drombana Lane, four miles outside Limerick, on January 2nd, 2003. All five received mandatory life sentences for murder, concurrent sentences of 15 years for the attempted murder of Mr Treacy and seven years for the false imprisonment of both men.
At the Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday, Mr Trevor Burke QC, for McCarthy, applied to have new evidence included as part of the men's appeal.
Counsel said that, during their trial, his client and Dundon had said they had an alibi on January 29th arising from their being picked up by an individual at a garage. Counsel said the garage had CCTV cameras and CCTV pictures, which were not very clear, were shown to the jury during the trial. Mr Burke said there was also a cashier in the garage at the time who could give evidence in relation to the alibi.
For a reason unknown to him, that cashier was not called to give evidence at the trial. The cashier had made a statement about the events of January 29th, 2003.
Rejecting the application, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, presiding, and sitting with Mr Justice Daniel Herbert and Mr Justice Brian McGovern, said new evidence could only be admitted in "exceptional circumstances" and no such circumstances applied here. The fact that somebody was working in the garage on January 29th, 2003, must have been known to the applicants and their legal team and could have been acquired at the trial, he said.