Hutch's defence: State has 'danced around' jurisdiction issue

Counsel said that the prosecution was asking the court to put a 'strange' and 'very wrong' interpretation on the Criminal Justice Surveillance Act 2009

Armed gardai outside the court during the trial of Gerry Hutch Picture: Sasko Lazarov/RollingNews.ie

Gerard Hutch’s defence team has told his Special Criminal Court murder trial that there is nothing in the Criminal Justice (Surveillance) Act 2009 to suggest it has scope beyond the borders of the State and that the Oireachtas would have legislated for this with "irresistible clearness" if this had been the case.

Senior counsel Brendan Grehan, for Gerard 'The Monk' Hutch, said on Tuesday that the State had "danced around" the jurisdiction issue concerning conversations between Regency Hotel murder accused Mr Hutch and ex Sinn Féin councillor Jonathan Dowdall that were captured by a Garda bugging device. 

Counsel said that the prosecution was asking the court to put "a strange" and "very wrong" interpretation on the act.

The three-judge court will rule on Friday morning whether the contents of the recorded conversations are admissible in evidence having regard to the extraterritoriality issue.

Sean Gillane SC, for the Director of Public Prosecutions, submitted on Monday that the conversations captured by the two men on the Garda bugging device, which the State says is "part of the core" of their case, should be admissible in evidence and that any issue about where the device travelled to is "a cloud" which the defence has placed over the case.

Prosecution counsel has agreed with the presiding judge it was the State's case that, once a surveillance device is placed and retrieved lawfully on a car within this jurisdiction, "then it does not matter a damn where the vehicle was in the meantime".

The trial has heard that the jeep crossed the border at the Carrickdale Hotel in Dundalk Co Louth at 3.12pm on March 7, crossing back into the Republic at 10.50pm that night at Aughnacloy in Co Monaghan.

Mr Hutch (59), last of The Paddocks, Clontarf, Dublin 3, denies the murder of Kinahan Cartel member David Byrne (33) during a boxing weigh-in at the Regency Hotel on February 5, 2016.

Mr Hutch's two co-accused — Paul Murphy (61), of Cherry Avenue, Swords, Co Dublin and Jason Bonney (50), of Drumnigh Wood, Portmarnock, Dublin 13 have pleaded not guilty to participating in or contributing to the murder of David Byrne by providing access to motor vehicles on February 5, 2016.

The trial continues on Friday before Ms Justice Tara Burns sitting with Judge Sarah Berkeley and Judge Grainne Malone.