A brother of convicted "Real IRA" leader Michael McKevitt was given a five years suspended prison sentence at the Special Criminal Court in Dublin yesterday for firearms and ammunition offences.
Vincent McKevitt (46), a father of four of Mountain Court, Point Road, Dundalk pleaded guilty to possession of a sawn-off shotgun, a 9mm semi-automatic pistol, 16 rounds of 9mm ammunition and four shotgun cartridges at Nicholas St, Dundalk on January 5th, 2002. He is a younger brother of Michael McKevitt who was jailed for 20 years last August for directing terrorism and membership of an illegal organisation.
A membership charge against Vincent McKevitt was dropped by the prosecution and the court was asked to take into account another membership charge relating to October 26th, 2000.
The court heard that Vincent McKevitt suffered a heart attack while in prison awaiting trial in March 2002 and underwent triple bypass surgery in January this year.
Mr Justice Paul Butler, presiding, said that the court would have sentenced McKevitt to five years imprisonment for the offences but for the medical evidence.
He said that the medical evidence was that McKevitt suffered a serious heart attack and was recovering from a triple bypass operation and it appears that he is trying to change his lifestyle.
"The effect of the medical evidence is that this man would be better off not in prison," the judge said. The court sentenced McKevitt to five years but suspended it for two years on a number of conditions.
The court ordered that McKevitt must not associate with any members of an illegal organisation or with anyone convicted or charged with a scheduled offence. The court also ordered that he should reside at his address at Mountain Court for the first year of the suspended sentence and should observe a curfew between the hours of 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.
The court also ordered McKevitt to sign on daily at his local Garda station for the entire period of his sentence and that he should surrender his passport and not leave the jurisdiction for the first year of the suspended sentence.
The court agreed that an exception to the association order would be made for family members to allow him to meet for family occasions.
Chief Superintendent Peter Maguire told the court that he was in charge of an investigation in January 2002 into the activities of an illegal organisation in Co Louth. He said that detectives who raided a house in Nicholas St in Dundalk found six men, including McKevitt, and a sawn off shotgun, a pistol and ammunition. They also found a steel bar, a hammer, two walkie talkies, balaclavas and gloves and a radio scanner.
The chief superintendent said that the other men arrested with McKevitt had been jailed for three and a half years. He said that McKevitt has a previous conviction at the Special Criminal Court in February 1983 when he was jailed for five years for possession of firearms and hijacking at Blackrock, Co Louth.
Vincent McKevitt, in evidence, gave a sworn undertaking not to associate with members of an illegal organisation. He told his counsel that he understood that there would be serious consequences if he breached this.