The Special Criminal Court will rule today on an application by Mr John Gilligan, the Dublin man who denies murdering journalist Veronica Guerin in 1996.
Mr Michael O'Higgins SC, for Mr Gilligan, has applied to the court to discharge his client on the ground that he is not lawfully before it, and to inquire into the circumstances surrounding three protected witnesses who are to give prosecution evidence - Charles Bowden, Russell Warren and John Dunne. Imprisoned for drug offences, the three men are in the Witness Protection Programme.
Yesterday Mr O'Higgins claimed "some funny business" had been going on. "Three people are in custody engaging in a campaign of attrition with the people who are keeping them there, saying that they are not satisfied and that they are being intimidated," he said.
Mr O'Higgins also claimed the court had a duty to investigate Mr Gilligan's extradition from England in February, not only out of fairness to him but to protect the integrity of its own processes.
Mr Gilligan (48), with addresses at Blanchardstown, Dublin, and Enfield, Co Kildare, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Ms Guerin (37), at Naas Road, Dublin, on June 26th, 1996.
He also denies 11 allegations of importing cannabis resin for sale or supply on dates between July 1994 and October 1996; and that in October 1996 he had cannabis resin for sale or supply at Harold's Cross, Dublin.
Mr Gilligan has also denied having a Sten sub-machine gun, a silenced barrel, two magazines, a 9 mm Agram machine pistol, five Walther semi-automatic pistols, four magazines and 1,057 rounds of assorted ammunition with intent to endanger life or to enable another person to endanger life at Oldcourt Road, Tallaght, Dublin, between November 10th, 1995, and October 3rd, 1996.
Mr O'Higgins told the court yesterday that constitutional justice was an essential part of justice. "If you take it away it will have very fatal consequences rapidly," he added. He said the court had to investigate what happened in England to his client, and that the Minister for Justice and the Witness Protection Programme had "tainted the process" by their dealings with the witnesses.
He said his client was not lawfully before the court and the prosecution must prove he was. He did not accept the DPP's right to re-arrest his client and bring him back to court if the court decided to discharge him, as Mr Charleton had indicated during his submissions.
He also claimed Bowden's evidence on the murder charge should not be given, as it had been in Brian Meehan's trial, when the court had found it "unreliable".