Rupert: from a tourist to a spy

FOUR marriages, two failed business empires and a love affair with the Irish scenery and lifestyle.

David Rupert, the unlikely spy, finally revealed the man behind the mystery yesterday.

Rupert, 6ft 5”, around 20 stone, with greying hair and wearing glasses, sat slightly hunched in the witness box as he was eased through his first day of testimony as the key witness in the Special Criminal Court trial of 53-year-old Dundalk man Michael McKevitt.

McKevitt, who is accused of directing the activities, and being a member, of the Real IRA, sat just yards away from the protected witness. He denies the charges.

Mr Rupert was flanked by members of the Garda Emergency Response Unit as he made his way into court.

The American, after being asked his age, hesitated for a second, before finally replying “51”.

One of seven children of a New York mother and Canadian father, he left school at 16 and worked variously in the construction, insurance and logging businesses before finding his metier in the trucking industry.

His first business collapsed in 1984 but he managed to build up a second trucking company, at one point owning or leasing 39 lorries and 110 trailers. That too went under in early 1993 after one of the lorries was involved in a crash that killed three children in Kentucky, including the daughter of the local District Attorney.

Mr Rupert had no connection with Ireland and had never visited the country until the Spring of 1992. At the urging of a girlfriend, Deborah Murphy, he made the decision to go to Ireland for the first time. The couple travelled through the south-west but politics was not on their mind.

Mr Rupert said it brought him back 40 years, to his childhood in New York. “It was very comfortable, very relaxed for me. I really loved it,” he said.

After the break-up of his relationship with Ms Murphy, the American told the court, he returned to Ireland, this time with a new, and highly politicised, girlfriend, Linda Vaughan, whom he met in an Irish bar in Florida. “I started dating her. It seemed like a good thing to do,” he said, to muffled laughter in the court.

Ms Vaughan, a lobbyist for Noraid, the pro-republican Irish-American fundraising body, introduced Mr Rupert to Irish republicanism and particularly to two publicans, Vincent Murray of Sligo and Joe O’Neill of Bundoran.

He made repeated trips to Ireland and came to the attention of Garda special branch, who photographed him. The FBI, through Chicago agent Patrick Buckley, came calling in late 1994 and asked whether he would be prepared to work for the agency and provide information on particular individuals.

After initially refusing, Mr Rupert agreed. “From my moral teachings, I found it a morally acceptable thing to do...and he was offering to expense me for my trips so I agreed to take him up on the issue.” Up to that point, he was a tourist. From then on, he was a spy.

The hearing continues.