Bowden continues evidence at Gilligan trial

A third State supergrass, Charles Bowden, has been giving evidence to the Special Criminal Court this afternoon about the Veronica Guerin murder in 1996.

Bowden claims that he had spoken to John Gilligan on a number of occasions about drugs and guns, which had been imported from Holland.

Bowden is currently serving a six-year sentence for drugs and firearms offences.

He told the court today that he collected the drugs from a man in a Co Kildare hotel car park, brought them to a lock-up in Dublin, cut them and distributed them on the instructions of Brian Meehan.

His payments were between £500 and £3,000 per week. He said that he met John Gilligan three times face-to-face and on one occasion in the hotel car park where he collected the drugs.

He also spoke to Gilligan on the phone many times, he said, about the consignment of drugs and firearms arriving from Holland.

He said that on June 28, 1996, the day before the Guerin murder, he cleaned and loaded a .357 Magnum revolver.

He loaded it with six bullets and left another six beside it, but claimed that he never saw the gun again.

Opening his cross-examination, Michael O’Higgins SC told the witness that he was ''a bare-faced liar''.