Judgment in the trial of four Co Tyrone men who say they were set up by a missing south Armagh informer was reserved yesterday by Belfast Crown Court judge Mr Justice Girvan.
Mr Justice Girvan, who has already acquitted the men of "Real IRA" membership after ruling it was not an illegal organisation under current legislation, said he hoped to deliver his judgment before the end of term this month, if not sooner.
The four, Mr Donald Mullan (33), Firmount Park, Dungannon; Mr Seán Dillon (27), Roughan Way, and Mr Kevin Murphy (33), Altmore Park, both Coalisland; and Mr Brendan O'Connor (26) Cavanoneill Road, Pomeroy, deny charges of conspiracy to murder and possession of a lethal RPG 22 rocket launcher.
Lawyers for Mr Mullan, Mr Dillon and Mr Murphy claim that Gareth O'Connor was an informer who had set them up when they were allegedly caught red-handed with the RPG launcher by undercover troops and police in a field at Loughview Gardens, Coalisland, on February 17th, 2002.
Counsel for Mr Brendan O'Connor, who was arrested in a nearby carpark while in a car supplied by the missing Armagh man, also contended that even if not acquitted, the men's trial should be stopped because it was a "disgrace".
The prosecution, however, claims that the men have got a fair trial and have branded as a "tissue of lies" defence suggestions that they were set up by Mr Gareth O'Connor.
Prosecution lawyer Mr Gary McCrudden further claimed it was open to the court to draw the proper inference that the three men were in the field not to commit burglary but to have possession of the rocket-launcher, and that Brendan O'Connor was a party to what was going on.
He said the only one of the four to give evidence was Mr Murphy who, while claiming to be set up by Gareth O'Connor, did not know why anyone would have planted the rocket launcher on him.
Of Mr Murphy's claims that Gareth O'Connor had arranged a burglary to lure them to the area, "this the prosecution say was a lying account".
Mr McCrudden said Mr Murphy had concocted his evidence "to fit the movements in the field" and had even "embellished" his account with an earlier "scouting trip".
Defence lawyer Mr Neil Fox, for Mr Murphy, contended "that the entire Crown case, as presented, is full of inconsistencies and unreliable evidence".
Mr Murphy, he said, had given a full account of being lured into a burglary by Gareth O'Connor, whom the records showed to be not only in contact with Mr Murphy, but also with the police.
Mr Fox claimed the "powers that be" had tried to hide mobile telephone numbers linking the missing south Armagh man with both Mr Murphy and the police in an effort to disguise "the level of contact Gareth O'Connor had with the police".
Defence QC Mr Frank O'Donoghue, for Mr Mullan, claimed that while the rocket launcher was in the field when the men were arrested, they were not present when it was planted.
"Too much," said Mr O'Donoghue, "is going on in the background of this case." Despite the best efforts of the courts, "one is left with the feeling that the men are not getting a fair trial".
Mr Martin O'Rourke, for Mr Dillon, claimed that the courts' procedures had been "manipulated" from the start and that "deliberate misinformation" was passed on in an effort to conceal Gareth O'Connor's true involvement in the case.
Mr Joseph Brolly, for Mr Brendan O'Connor, claimed he was in a completely different situation from his co-accused on the accepted evidence in the trial.
He was not lured directly into the set-up by Gareth O'Connor and was not mentioned as an accomplice in the plan, whatever it had been.
Mr Brolly said there was also "independent corroboration" that his client was not known to police prior to his arrest, nor did he feature in any so-called intelligence material. Calling on the court to "keep its feet on the ground", Mr Brolly said it would be "wrong to draw any inference against Brendan O'Connor".