McKevitt witness planning book, claims defence

The key witness in the trial of a man accused of masterminding the organisation behind the Omagh bombing is planning to write a profit-making book about the case, a court heard today.

As Michael McKevitt, 53, went on trial, his defence claimed that FBI agent David Rupert was working with journalists on an account which could net him 55% of any cash brought in.

Lawyers at the Special Criminal Court in Dublin also urged the three sitting judges to order reporters they suspected of working on the book to be moved from the benches directly behind them.

Counsel for McKevitt said:” We are very concerned that people who are engaged in the publication of writing a book should be in a position where they can look over our shoulders and look at our notes.

“I submit that is unseemly and inappropriate.”

McKevitt, of Beech Park, Blackrock, Dundalk, Co Louth, is accused of directing terrorism and membership of the real IRA, the dissident republican grouping, behind the August 1998 Omagh outrage which killed 29 people.

He is the first man to be charged in the State with the new offence brought in by the Government after the attack.

Amid tight security, McKevitt, balding and wearing glasses and dressed in a dark suit, sat in the dock as his defence team argued that the court’s poor acoustics meant he should be allowed to sit close to them.

Mr Rupert, the FBI agent who allegedly infiltrated the dissident group, which is opposed to the Northern Ireland peace process, is not due to give evidence until Monday.

The accused’s partner Bernadette Sands McKevitt – the sister of hunger striker and republican icon Bobby Sands -- was in the public gallery as the trial got under way.