Lethal toxin found in alleged assassin's prison cell, court hears

A jury in the Central Criminal Court has been hearing that the lethal toxin Ricin was found in the prison cell of a former Las Vegas poker dealer accused of conspiring with a Clare woman to kill her partner and his two sons.

Ms Sharon Collins (aged 45), with an address at Ballybeg House, Kildysart Road Ennis and Mr Essam Eid (aged 52), an Egyptian man with a Las Vegas address have pleaded not guilty to conspiring to kill P.J., Robert and Niall Howard between August 1 2006 and 26 September 2006.

Ms Collins also denies hiring Mr Eid to shoot the three men.

Mr Eid denies demanding €100,000 from Mr Robert Howard to cancel the contracts. He also denies breaking into the Howard family business at Westgate Business Park and stealing two computers, some computer cables, a digital clock and a poster of old Irish money and then handling the stolen items.

Detective Garda Gerald Fahy told Ms Una Ni Raifeartaigh that he had received intelligence which led him to suspect that the toxin was hidden somewhere in Mr Eid’s cell in Limerick Prison where he had been held since his arrest following the burglary of the Howard family business in September 2006.

He told the court that on his arrival at the prison he had spoken to Mr Eid who had been taken to a different room while his cell was being searched.

He asked Mr Eid if he had a pair of contact lenses. “He told me he had contact lenses but he had lost them about two months after his arrival at Limerick Prison.”

Det. gda Fahy said Mr Eid told him he still had the lens case, which was off white and stored in a box under his bed. He told Mr Paul O’Higgins SC, defence counsel for Mr Eid, that while no contact lens case had been found on Mr Eid at the time of his arrest, his personal effects had been returned to him in prison and had included a medicine bag which had not been searched.

Commandant Peter Daly of the army Explosives Ordinance Disposal division told prosecuting counsel Mr Tom O’Connell SC that he had been in charge of the search of the cell.

He said he had been a UN weapons inspector in Iraq in 1998 and was familiar with the toxin Ricin. He said he had supervised the search party and ensured that they had all been correctly dressed in bio hazard suits with surgical gloves and breathing apparatus if necessary.

He said he had found the contact lens case in a box under Mr Eid’s box and handed it to his colleague for testing. He also took a small plastic bottle of a clear liquid to be tested. Several pages were also taken for testing.

Retired Commandant P.J. Butler told Ms Ni Raifeartaigh that he had tested the items taken from the cell. Using a RAMP machine (Rapid Analyte Measurement Platform) he tested the contact lens case, the bottle of liquid and the pages.

He said the test on the contact lens case was spoiled but the second produced a positive result. He told Mr Michael Bowman, defence counsel for Mr Eid that this test produced only a preliminary result and a further confirmation was necessary.

The court heard from several analytical chemists from LGC Limited in Teddington, Middlesex in the UK. Ms Joanna Peet explained that LGC had formerly stood for Laboratory of the Government Chemist and said the lab had continued to work with the British Home Office since it’s privatisation in 1996. She said she had received the contact lens case which had been flown over on a military aircraft from Balldonnel Airfield in Dublin.

Mr Stephen Kippen, the manager of the facility explained that Ricin was the third most deadly toxin known to man and was fatal if ingested, inhaled or injected. He told Ms Ni Raifeartaigh that it was a biological toxin derived from the beans of the castor oil plant.

He said there was a “sheen” on the inside of one of the cups on the case indicating that something had dried onto it. He had irrigated the lens case using a sterile saline solution to dislodge any material there.

He then made two separate samples from the solution used to wash out the cup and lid of either side of the case which, together with a control sample of the buffer solution, where sent to a sister laboratory for testing.

Mr Kippen told Mr O’Higgins the remainder of the sample left over for testing had been reserved and was being stored at LGC Ltd. He said that it was not known how stable Ricin was and as such it was not known if the samples were still viable.

He said he had carried out a biological test on a chemical substance and a chemical test had not been developed. He told Mr O’Higgins that no such test was available anywhere in the world, a fact he knew because he had been working on such a test for the past year.

The trial will continue on Monday before Mr Justice Roderick Murphy and the jury of eight men and four women.