RIRA double agent's business 'went bust'

The double agent testifying against alleged Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt switched cash into new accounts after going bankrupt to avoid paying a $30,000 (€26,000) loan, a court heard today.

FBI spy David Rupert also borrowed hundreds of thousands of dollars just before his business collapsed in 1984, it was claimed.

Mr Rupert, a former trucking company boss and bar owner, is a key witness in the prosecution’s case against McKevitt (aged 53), who denies directing the Real IRA and membership of the dissident republican organisation behind the Omagh bomb atrocity which killed 29 people.

Mr Rupert had told Dublin Special Criminal Court that a “catastrophic” property deal had left him facing financial ruin.

But on the eighth day of the trial, defence lawyers produced a 1985 bankruptcy document signed by the witness which they claimed showed he had intentionally tried to avoid paying back $30,000 (€26,000) borrowed from the Massena Savings and Loan Association during a house sale in New York.

Hugh Hartnett SC for the defence said: “You unlawfully and dishonestly diverted the funds.”

Asked by the barrister if his actions amounted to an offence, Mr Rupert replied that a civil action could have been taken against him.

He added: “I thought about it being a criminal offence but I was never arrested for it.

“I have always considered the possibility that if anything was a criminal offence I wasn’t interested in doing it.”

Mr Rupert was paid a total of 1.25 million US dollars (£750,000) to infiltrate dissident republican groupings for the FBI and MI5.

He has claimed that McKevitt of Blackrock, Dundalk, Co Louth, wanted to set up a new terror organisation and wage a major offensive against Britain’s financial district.

The suspected terrorist mastermind had also tried to secure backing from Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi regime and had recruited a former French Foreign Legionnaire who could be used in a plot to assassinate Prime Minister Tony Blair, the court was told.

But as the defence trawled through Mr Rupert’s financial history they highlighted a series of loans up to 58,000 dollars (£34,000) taken out by the witness during the early 1980s to purchase trucks, trailers and other equipment.

He had also struck a deal with an elderly widow to buy her hotel. An initial 10,000 dollar down payment (£6,000) was made but after Mr Rupert defaulted on later cash payments he was forced to hand the business back.

Mr Hartnett said: “A lot of these agreements you seem to have entered into in 1984 for huge sums of money and nearly immediately afterwards you go bust.”

But Mr Rupert insisted: “Apparently I spent too much money.”