FBI agent Mr David Rupert denied at the Special Criminal Court today that he had committed perjury in the trial of alleged 'Real IRA' leader Mr Michael McKevitt.
Mr McKevitt's counsel Mr Hugh Hartnett SC put it to Mr Rupert that the account of his first meeting with FBI agent Mr Ed Buckley in Chicago to the court was different to an account he gave to Chicago journalists recently.
Mr Hartnett suggested that he "told lies" about the Chicago meeting. Mr Rupert replied: "That's absolutely false."
Mr Hartnett said: "This is just one aspect of the perjury that you have committed before this court over the last three weeks?" and Mr Rupert replied: "Absolutely not. Defence counsel is grasping for ground and he is wrong."
Earlier the court heard an extract from a taped interview that Mr Rupert gave to two Chicago journalists in connection with a possible book about his life and his work infiltrating dissident republican groups in Ireland and the US.
In the extract Mr Rupert is heard to tell the journalists that when he first met Mr Buckley in his office in Chicago, the agent "threw down" pictures on the desk and these pictures showed Mr Rupert in the company of prominent Irish republicans Mr Joe O'Neill and Mr Vincent Murray.
Mr Rupert had earlier told the court that he made a statement to gardaí in 2001 in which he said Mr Buckley had the pictures with him but in March of the same year he corrected the statement and said he was unsure if he had the pictures or not. On the tape Mr Rupert is heard to tell the journalists that "they couldn't find the pictures" and he adds that he may have made a mistake.
Mr Rupert earlier denied a suggestion by Mr Hartnett that he was " a fantasist" who imagined himself in "dramatic or important stories." He also said that he could not recall that when he visited Ireland in September, 1994 after agreeing to work for the FBI, if he had told this to Mr O'Neill and Mr Murray.
It was the sixteenth day of the trial of Mr McKevitt (53), of Beech Park, Blackrock, Dundalk, Co Louth who denies membership of an unlawful organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise the IRA, otherwise Óglaigh na hÉireann between August 29th, 1999 and March 28th, 2001. He also denies directing the activities of the same organisation.
Mr Rupert(51), a former trucking company boss and bar owner, has told the court that he infiltrated dissident republican groups for the FBI and the British Security Service(MI5).
The trial continues on Monday.