Court rejects unlawful arrest submissions on IRA suspects

The Special Criminal Court today rejected defence submissions that five Dublin men arrested in Bray and later charged with IRA membership had been unlawfully arrested and detained.

The court has heard that gardaí recovered a large quantity of Sinn Féin posters, including election posters for Sinn Féin TD Aengus O' Snodaigh, from a car in which they also found a stun gun and CS gas canister after the mens' arrest.

It was the twentieth day of the trial of the five men. The trial has heard that gardaí recovered a CS gas canister, a stun gun, pick axe handles, balaclavas and a fake garda jacket after five men were seen acting suspiciously around three vehicles by an off-duty Special Branch officer. The court has heard that gardaí found four of the men seated on the floor of a transit van and two of them were dressed in fake garda uniforms.

The five Dublin men have pleaded not guilty to membership of an illegal organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Oglaigh na hÉireann, otherwise the IRA on October 11, 2002.

They are Thomas Gilson (aged 24), of Bawnlea Avenue, Jobstown, Tallaght, Patrick Brennan (aged 40), of Lindisfarne Avenue, Clondalkin, Sean O' Donnell (aged 32), of Castle Drive, Sandymount, John Troy (aged 22), of Donard Avenue and Stephen Birney (aged 30), of Conquerhill Road, Clontarf.

Defence counsel for the five men submitted that their arrest and detention under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act was unlawful and as a result interviews carried out with them by gardaí were not admissible in evidence.

The defence argued that the Section 30 arrests were unlawful because of "a series of prior illegalities which took place prior to the arrests".

But today Mr Justice Diarmuid O’ Donovan, presiding, said that the court rejected the "series of illegalities" which defence counsel had submitted rendered their arrest and detention unlawful.

He said the court was satisfied that each of the accused was lawfully arrested on the morning of October 11, 2002, that gardaí were entitled under common law to search the van in which the men were found and that none of the accused were in unlawful detention between the period they arrived at Bray Garda Station and the time they were ultimately detained by the member in charge Sergeant Mythen.

However the court did find that searches of the accused carried out following their arrival at Bray Garda Station were unlawful because they were carried out before Sergeant Mythen had agreed to detain them.

The court also found that details of the person carrying out the searches and the reasons for the searches were not entered in the custody record but the court was not persuaded that those unlawful searches vitiated the subsequent detention of the accused nor was the breach of custody regulations sufficiently serious to effect the legality of the detention of each of the accused.

The court also said that the delay in complying with requests from three of the accused to see a solicitor did not prejudice them.

The court also ruled that the extension of the mens detention under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act of 1984 was lawful and that it was also lawful to arrest them under the Offences Against the State Act following their detention under the Criminal Justice Act.

The court concluded: "It is clear from all the foregoing that the court is satisfied beyond all reasonable doubt that the arrest and subsequent detention of each of the accused pursuant to the provisions of Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act, 1939, was entirely lawful."

Following the court’s ruling, the prosecution called evidence relating to interviews carried out with the accused by members of the Special Detective Unit.

The trial continues tomorrow.