Belfast man receives second sentence

A Belfast man who was jailed for life last week for the murder of a taxi driver in the city was jailed for a further 15 years by the Special Criminal Court in Dublin today.

Last week Gerard Mackin became the first person to be convicted by a Dublin court for a murder carried out in Northern Ireland.

Mackin was jailed for life after he was found guilty of the murder of Belfast taxi driver Eddie Burns, a father of five, in the city on March 12, 2007. It was the first time that anyone has been convicted in a Dublin court for a murder committed in the North, under a cross-border anti-terrorist law introduced in 1976.

Today he was jailed for fifteen years for the attempted murder of Damien O’ Neill on the same date, as well as 10 years for the possession of a revolver with intent to endanger life and 12 years for intentionally causing serious harm to Mr O’Neill. The court ordered all the sentences to run concurrently.

Detective Superintendent Diarmuid O’ Sullivan of the Special Detective Unit told the court that Mr O'Neill still has a bullet in his neck as a result of being shot and wounded by Mackin.

Mackin (aged 26), a native of the Whiterock area of west Belfast with an address at Raheen Close, Tallaght, Dublin opted for trial in the Republic under the Criminal Law Jurisdiction Act of 1976 which allows suspects to be tried in the Republic for alleged offences in Britain or Northern Ireland.

During the ten-day trial the three-judge non-jury court heard evidence over two days at Belfast Crown Court from a number of witnesses who were reluctant to travel to Dublin, including O'Neill, the main prosecution witness who was himself shot twice during the incident.

It was the first time the judges of the Special Criminal Court sat in Belfast to hear evidence.