A BELFAST man on trial for the murder of a taxi driver in the city almost four years ago walked free from the Special Criminal Court in Dublin yesterday after the trial collapsed.
There were emotional scenes inside the court as supporters of Gerard Mackin (28) cheered and clapped while members of the murdered man’s family, including his mother, wept openly.
After the hearing Nicola McReynolds, a sister of victim Eddie Burns, said: “We are a broken-hearted family having been through a retrial.
“We, the Burns family, will continue to fight for justice for our Eddie. Eddie was a gentleman.”
Michael Bowman, prosecuting, told the court that the State was entering a nolle prosequiin the case against Mr Mackin after only three days of evidence.
The trial had resumed at the Criminal Courts of Justice in Parkgate Street, Dublin, yesterday after the three judges of the court had heard evidence at the Laganside Courts in Belfast on Monday and Tuesday.
It was the second trial of Mr Mackin at the Special Criminal Court after his original conviction was quashed last July.
In Belfast on Tuesday, the chief prosecution witness in the trial refused to give evidence and said he feared for his life.
Damien O’Neill told Belfast High Court judge Ronald Weatherup and the three judges of the Special Criminal Court: “I have been threatened that if I give any evidence I will be shot dead.”
Mr O’Neill, who was arrested in Belfast on Monday night on foot of a warrant issued by Mr Justice Weatherup, said he had been visited twice in the past three weeks by “men from the republican movement”.
The judge discharged Mr O’Neill after refusing a prosecution application to have a statement made by Mr O’Neill to the PSNI in 2007 admitted in evidence.
President of the High Court Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns along with Judge Joseph Matthews and Judge Flannan Brennan, were on the bench for the taking of evidence by Mr Justice Weatherup.
Mr Mackin, from Whiterock, west Belfast, with an address at Raheen Close, Tallaght, Dublin, had denied the murder of Mr Burns (36), a taxi driver and father of five, of Prospect Park, Belfast, at Bog Meadow, Falls Road, Belfast, on March 12th, 2007.
He had also pleaded not guilty to the attempted murder of Damien O’Neill, the possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life and causing serious harm to Mr O’Neill.
Mr Mackin’s trial opened in Dublin last month but proceedings were adjourned to allow for the taking of evidence in Northern Ireland. Mr Mackin’s original conviction was quashed in 2008 after the appeal court ruled that crucial prosecution evidence taken in Belfast had not been properly proven during his original trial.
He was the first person convicted in a Dublin court for a murder in Belfast under a rarely used cross-Border anti-terrorist law. Mr Mackin opted for trial in the Republic under the Criminal Law Jurisdiction Act of 1976, which allows suspects to be tried in the Republic for offences in Britain or Northern Ireland.