McKevitt lawyers want trial stopped

Tuesday, July 22, 2003 - 07:22 PM

Lawyers for alleged Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt made an application to stop his trial today, claiming the case had been “irreparably prejudiced”.

Defence barristers said a number of documents had not been disclosed until very recently, denying them the chance to put certain matters arising from them to FBI agent David Rupert when he was in the witness box.

Hugh Hartnett for the defence said: “This information which we got late in the day would have changed our view and tactics. It is extraordinary that this can have happened.”

Prosecution barrister George Birmingham argued that it would have been impossible for his team to submit every single document.

He accused the defence team of making a “mountain out of a molehill”.

One of the issues arising out of the recent disclosure of documents to McKevitt’s team concerned evidence given by Mr Rupert, who spent 15 days in the witness box at Dublin’s Special Criminal Court.

He told of how he had infiltrated dissident republican groups in Ireland during the 1990s and had met McKevitt on a number of occasions.

Mr Hartnett said today that in his book of evidence Mr Rupert had told how Stephen McKevitt (son of the accused) had picked him up from a meeting of the IRA’s Army Council in February 2000.

He said this was contradicted by new evidence showing that Stephen McKevitt was seen driving at a separate location at around the same time.

Mr Hartnett said this and other documents provided material “of extraordinary significance” which should have been provided before the cross-examination of Mr Rupert.

“These are matters which if we had known we would have entirely changed the tack we would have taken in cross-examination,” Mr Hartnett said.

He said there was a significant amount of material of a “very bland nature” and that a decision was made not to disclose it.

“We are irreparably prejudiced,” he told the court.

“We are gravely concerned and I ask your Lordship to stay these proceedings on the basis of the inherent power available to this court.”

He added: “We say that there has been unfairness of a critical type.

“We say that there appears to be no immediate explanation for that.

“We are irreparably prejudiced. We are irreparably damaged and we are damaged in relation to the question of Mr Rupert’s testimony of evidence.”

Responding to this application to stay proceedings Mr Birmingham said it was “utterly misconceived”.

He added: “It is to make a mountain out of a molehill.”

He accused the defence team of engaging in an utterly unfair exercise, picking and choosing from various e-mails and using the evidence in court.

He said that when deciding what to disclose as evidence the prosecution team focused on events involving Michael McKevitt rather than Stephen McKevitt.

He said that when Mr Rupert described being picked up by Stephen McKevitt he was referring to a meeting that Michael McKevitt himself was not attending, and therefore did not believe it to be as relevant.

He said it would be possible to bring Mr Rupert back for further cross-examination but that this would be a “quite unnecessary exercise”.

McKevitt, 53, of Blackrock, Dundalk, Co Louth, denies directing the Real IRA and being a member of the organisation.

The trial was adjourned until Thursday morning while the three judges considered Mr Hartnett’s application.