Three men have been jailed in London for a total of 26 years for running an underworld armoury, whose weapons are feared by British police to have fallen into the hands of Irish terrorists.
The court heard pistols and sub-machineguns were reactivated and used for crimes, including murder, in the Republic.
Police believe the weapons, including Uzi and Sterling sub-machineguns, were purchased by Irish criminal elements who had connections to terrorists.
A stash of reactivated weapons across the Republic was uncovered by gardaí, and a pistol linked to the fatal shooting of a man was found at the bottom of a river. A home-made bomb was also found.
A surveillance operation involving the London Metropolitan Police's Anti-Terrorist Branch, the Lancashire Constabulary and the Garda led to British gun-club members Robert Naylor (49), from Morecambe, Lancashire, James Greenwood (56), also from Morecambe, and James Maloney (45), from Bradford. Naylor was jailed for 10 years, Greenwood for nine and Maloney for seven.
Judge Peter Beaumont QC said deterrent sentences had to be passed as a warning to others.
"The only weapon in the court's armoury is to make it clear to anyone minded to involve themselves in the illegal trafficking of firearms is that if you do it you will be locked up for a long time," he said.
On August 10th last year Naylor was observed near Morecambe selling a Sten sub-machinegun with a silencer and two banned handguns to Maloney. Shortly after, Naylor was caught with £4,000 in cash under the seat of his car. A month later another Sterling sub-machinegun was recovered in Dublin.
Mr Mark Ellison, prosecuting, told the court that Naylor and Greenwood were friends and had been members of gun-clubs for some years. They were licensed to hold certain weapons for target practice.
Greenwood kept lathes, tools and other equipment in a workshop in the garden of his home. Both Naylor and Greenwood became involved in the reactivation of deactivated machineguns and prohibited handguns.
The first of the guns discovered in Ireland was a CZ self-loading pistol found in a river bed in December 2002. It had been reactivated by Greenwood, and gardaí found it had been used in a murder the month before.
In March last year police raided the Quality Hotel in Co Dublin where, stashed in a pillow case, they uncovered an Uzi sub-machinegun with 15 rounds of ammunition. Later that month a linked raid on another address revealed a second Uzi hidden in a compartment under a cooker.
Both had been listed as deactivated on the same date and both had been reactivated in a similar fashion, said Mr Ellison.
On June 3rd last year a raid in Co Limerick revealed a Sterling sub-machinegun. Also found was a home-made bomb and a box containing drugs. Nine days later another Sterling gun was found on a building site. Like the one in Limerick, it had been reactivated. The final weapon found in Ireland was a third Sterling, in Dublin in September last year.
Mr Peter Clarke, National Co-ordinator of Terrorist Investigations, said: "These men had conspired to deliver a murderous arsenal of automatic weapons to criminals in Ireland. No direct terrorist connections have been found, but these men knew that by putting such weapons in the hands of criminals the likelihood was that someone would be killed or maimed."