A young Donegal woman yesterday related to the Morris tribunal how she was told to pass on a threat to her friend and employer by a man wielding a gun.
Ms Eleanor McDermott (28), a friend of alleged Garda informant, Ms Adrienne McGlinchey, told the tribunal she was dropped-off by Ms McGlinchey's sister, Karen, at her home at about 1 a.m. on August 31st, 1999, when a man approached her looking for Ms Adrienne McGlinchey. "You just missed her," Ms McDermott said. The man asked her to give a message to Ms McGlinchey.
He produced a gun from his pocket, and said, "tell her this will go into her mouth if she doesn't keep quiet".
The tribunal is currently examining allegations by Ms Adrienne McGlinchey that together with Det Noel McMahon and Supt Kevin Lennon she mixed explosives that were later used in bogus Garda finds of terrorist arms.
Both men have denied the claims, and Ms McGlinchey denies she was an informer.
"I was in a state of shock. I went inside and I could not believe this had just happened," Ms McDermott told tribunal chairman, Mr Justice Frederick Morris.
It was not until the next day that what had happened "hit her", and she rang Ms McGlinchey and told her what had happened. She made a statement to the Carty inquiry.
Some time later, Ms McDermott retracted this statement after being arrested by the Carty team, and also an allegation regarding travelling to Rathmullen with Ms McGlinchey.
Ms McDermott said the statement of retraction was not true. She said she had been in custody for over 30 hours when she made this statement. "It was the only way to get home."
"I changed my mind because I was terrified of them," Ms McDermott told the tribunal. Ms McDermott said Ms McGlinchey told her to tell her sister Karen that she was at a beach in Rathmullen. She was to say Adrienne met three men there, and was driven away in a car by them.
It "got out of hand", she said. "It was only a conversation that was supposed to be between me and Karen." When members of the Carty inquiry team approached her, she repeated the story to them, as she "wasn't thinking clearly".
Earlier, a Donegal garda told the tribunal he was threatened with a transfer unless he dropped civil proceedings against a neighbour who was a personal friend of Supt Kevin Lennon. "Our lives have been destroyed over the incident," Garda Tom Lynch told the tribunal.
The garda said they had problems with their neighbour, and with disturbances from loud music.
Garda Lynch and his wife tried to resolve the situation through civil proceedings. He said that after the documents were served, Supt Lennon called him into his office and threatened him with a transfer to Pettigo.