The Cork man accused of money-laundering said today there was nothing unusual about two men arriving in a churchyard across the road from his house with £800,000 in Northern sterling and then driving off without getting a receipt.

A Cork man being tried on money-laundering charges in a case arising from the 2004 Northern Bank robbery today told a court that a Garda chief had wanted him to "rubberstamp" the view that his business partner and former Bank of Scotland (Ireland) boss, Phil Flynn, was behind the crime.

THE EARLY morning knock on the door of an isolated farmhouse in West Cork didn’t only herald the arrival of air-sea rescue helicopters. It led to the biggest drugs case in the history of the State.