Gilligan waits on appeal ruling

Drugs baron John Gilligan is due to hear the result of an appeal against his 28-year sentence for drug offences today.

Gilligan was convicted of possession of cannabis resin and having the drug for sale following a 45-day trial in Dublin in 2001.

He was acquitted of the murder of Veronica Guerin on June 26 1996 and also cleared of firearms charges.

During his appeal at Dublin’s Court of Criminal Appeal last month, Gilligan’s lawyers claimed he was wrongly convicted on the basis of uncorroborated and inadmissible evidence.

It was claimed that evidence against him came from “serial self-serving liars”, “compromised witnesses” and “desperate men in desperate straits”.

Michael O’Higgins SC, for Gilligan, described the Special Criminal Court judgment delivered in March 2001 as “absolutely ambiguous”.

He said there was no room for ambiguity when a man was serving a very lengthy sentence on the basis of such a judgment.

During the 2001 trial three of Gilligan’s alleged former accomplices – Charles Bowden, Russell Warren and John Dunne – testified against him.

All three have been freed from prison having completed what Gilligan’s lawyers described as “derisory” sentences for various charges and have been placed on the witness protection scheme, under which they received new identities.

Mr O’Higgins said the operation of the programme in Gilligan’s trial was a critical point of the appeal.

He claimed the men who testified against him were having secret and unrecorded meetings under the protection scheme, and were seeking immunity for themselves from prosecution.

State lawyers replied that in deciding that John Gilligan was guilty of drug crimes, the Special Criminal Court had applied common sense and shrewdness.

They said Gilligan’s conviction was “squarely based” on the evidence of John Dunne and supported by the evidence of Charles Bowden and Russell Warren.

These, and a series of other facts and circumstantial evidence, all showed that Gilligan was involved with a drugs gang and that he began to import cannabis in 1994.

Gilligan was present in court for the seven-day appeal, which opened on July 1 and was conducted amid tight security.

The verdict was due to be delivered today by Mr Justice McCracken, sitting with Mr Justice Quirke and Mr Justice Peart.