Shot IRA woman's brother in court on bomb charge

A brother of an IRA woman shot dead by British Special Forces in Gibraltar appeared in court today charged with a bomb attack in the North.

Ciaran Farrell, whose sister Mairead was one of three republicans gunned down by the SAS in 1988, stood in the dock of the same magistrates’ court in Newry that he is accused of blowing up.

The 51-year-old, arrested in Dunmurry in greater Belfast on Monday, is charged with the dissident republican car bombing that caused substantial damage to the outside of the court in February.

A police detective said there was ``strong circumstantial'' evidence linking the defendant to the bombing.d

A lawyer for the Public Prosecution Service said: “This accused is a member of a dissident republican organisation, in particular the police view, and the Crown view concurs, that it is the Real IRA.”

He said that, even if Farrell was not a formal member, he was clearly sympathetic to it.

He told magistrate Bernie Kelly that, if she allowed the accused out on bail, there was a risk to the public.

“We feel that he will then associate with dissident republicans and there’s a high risk that he will reoffend and commit similar offences,” he said.

The married father of two teenage boys, from Killeaton Park, Dunmurry, is accused of unlawfully and maliciously planting the car bomb in a manner likely to endanger life or damage property.

The PPS lawyer said that if convicted the defendant faced a considerable period in jail.

Farrell is married to an American and travels often to the US and the prosecution said that heightened their fear that he could flee.

The lawyer also said he had associated with another person wanted by police in connection with the bombing.

Farrell, who has white hair and a ruddy complexion, was surrounded in the dock by police and spoke only to confirm that he understood the charges.

His solicitor, Sean Doherty, said he emphatically denied the charges.

“There is no direct tangible evidence that connects the defendant directly to this bomb,” he said.

“The thrust really of the prosecution case is based on circumstantial evidence which, of course, the defendant denies.

“Although there is innuendo and suggestion that he is a member of an organisation, that is emphatically denied.”

Farrell was remanded in custody to reappear at the same court via video link on June 23.

Mairead Farrell was one of the IRA's so-called Gibraltar Three who were shot dead by the SAS in controversial circumstances in the British territory in March 1988.

The 31-year-old Belfast woman, Sean Savage, 24, and Daniel McCann, 30, travelled there to bomb soldiers taking part in a changing of the guard ceremony outside the governor’s residence.

Before they could launch the attack, special forces who had been tracking their movements gunned them down as they made their way to the Spanish border.

Witnesses claimed Farrell, who had previously been jailed for 10 years for bombing a Belfast hotel, was trying to surrender when she was shot at close range.

While an inquest ruled the killings were lawful, the European Court of Human Rights later came to a different conclusion, finding that the SAS soldiers used excessive force and denied the three republicans their right to life.

The killings sparked one of the bloodiest periods of the Troubles.

Days later, loyalist paramilitary Michael Stone killed three mourners when he launched a gun and grenade attack on the funerals of the Gibraltar Three at Milltown cemetery in west Belfast.

At the subsequent funeral of one of the mourners, two British Army corporals who inadvertently drove into the cortege were pulled from their car and murdered by a republican mob.