FBI agent witness denies being a fantasist

The FBI agent testifying against alleged Real IRA mastermind Michael McKevitt today rejected claims that he was a fantasist.

US businessman David Rupert denied he was the kind of person who imagined himself in dramatic or important situations.

He also denied committing perjury while giving evidence in the trial of Mr McKevitt.

Defence barrister Hugh Hartnett said to Mr Rupert: “I’m going to suggest to you that this morning you told lies.”

Mr Rupert, 51, is the key witness in the trial of Michael McKevitt of Blackrock, Dundalk, County Louth, who denies directing the Real IRA and being a member of the dissident republican organisation which killed 29 people in the August 1998 Omagh bomb atrocity.

During intensive cross-examination at Dublin’s Special Criminal Court Mr Hartnett quizzed the former trucking company boss about the time he was first approached by an FBI agent and asked to spy on republicans he had befriended in Ireland.

Mr Rupert – who was paid $1.25m by the FBI and MI5 to infiltrate the dissident republican terror organisation – said that when agent Buckley made the offer he was busy with his trucking business and did not pay much thought to the request. He initially rejected the offer.

The barrister asked him: “When you went home that night and sat down in your armchair did it not come back to you then, ’My goodness, what drama’?”

He asked whether Mr Rupert saw what a serious and important approach had been made.

“It’s not every day an FBI agent knocks on one’s door and asks a person to become an agent or to spy in dangerous circumstances,” he added.

Asked why he had not been struck by the drama of the occasion Mr Rupert accused the defence counsel of trying to put words into his mouth.

“It wasn’t dramatic,” he said.

Mr Hartnett later asked the agent about a visit he made to Ireland shortly after the offer had been made, and asked whether he had told his republican friends about the FBI’s offer.

“I could have,” Mr Rupert replied.

After remarking that this would be an odd thing to do the barrister asked him: “Are you a fantasist?”

Mr Rupert asked for a definition of this, and was told it was “somebody who imagines themselves to be in dramatic or important situations.” He replied that he was not a fantasist.

The striking 6ft 5in, 20-stone informer was also quizzed extensively about photographs thought to have been taken of him and Irish republicans before he became a spy.

Mr Rupert said that he once told police that agent Buckley showed him the photographs.

However, he later realised that he may not have seen the pictures and went back to correct his statement.

The defence barrister later played a tape of an interview Mr Rupert gave to a group of journalists researching a book on his story.

The barrister claimed the tape showed inconsistencies regarding the story of the photograph.

He claimed the agent had seen photographs and accused him of lying to the court.

“I’m going to suggest to you that this morning you told lies,” Mr Hartnett said.

“I suggest you told very significant lies.”

He added: “I’m going to suggest to you that this is just one aspect of the perjury you have committed in this court in the last three weeks.”

Mr Rupert rejected the allegations as “absolutely false”.

He added: “I’m going to suggest it is an example that the defence counsel is grasping for grounds and he is wrong.”

At one point in the proceedings Mr Rupert was asked to recall a statement he made in court yesterday.

Asked whether he agreed that yesterday was not very long ago to remember the facts he replied: “It’s all relative.”

Amid stifled laughter in the courtroom he added: “It depends whether you are talking about a human’s life or an ant’s life.”

The trial was adjourned until Monday.