Three members of the Real IRA, jailed for terrorist offences after being caught in a sting in which MI5 officers posed as Iraqi intelligence agents and arms dealers, today lost a bid to challenge their convictions.
The Court of Appeal in London rejected applications for leave to appeal brought by Fintan O'Farrell (41), Declan Rafferty (44), and Michael McDonald (46), all from Co Louth.
But Lord Justice Hooper, sitting with two other judges, will give the court's decision on Friday on the trio's application for a reduction in their 30-year jail sentences, handed down by a judge at Woolwich Crown Court in south London in May 2002.
The three men pleaded guilty to conspiring to cause explosions and other charges under the Terrorism Act, following an unsuccessful application to the trial judge to have the proceedings against them halted as an "abuse of process".
Evidence against them was obtained during an undercover operation in 2001 when officers taped and filmed conversations at an Arab restaurant in a Slovak spa resort.
At one meeting the men wrote down their shopping list - 5,000kg of plastic explosives, 2,000 detonators, 200 rocket-propelled grenades and 500 handguns - on a paper napkin.
The Crown Court judge, Mr Justice Astill, told the three men: "It might be that there were pressures upon you coming from the accident of where you lived and loyalty to those you know. However, each of you took a decision to assist in obtaining the means to kill and to maim.
"That decision was made in the wake of the horrific results of the bomb in Omagh (a reference to the deaths of 29 people in 1998)".
The sole ground of appeal at the centre of their conviction challenge was a submission that Mr Justice Astill was wrong not to accede to the defence's submission that proceedings against the three should be stayed as an abuse of process because they had been "unlawfully" extradited from Slovakia.
But, Lord Justice Hooper, rejecting the "extradition ground", said: "Looking at each complaint individually and looking at it cumulatively the answer remains the same - Mr Justice Astill was entitled to reach the conclusion which he did."
After the application was dismissed, Ben Emmerson QC, for the men, went on to argue that their sentences, imposed following a plea of guilty, were too long "having regard to the scales of sentences passed in comparable cases and guidance given by the Court of Appeal".
Lord Justice Hooper told Mr Emmerson: "We take the view that it is arguable that the sentence is wrong. We put it no higher than that." The ruling on the sentence application will be given at 9.45am on Friday.
PA