Charges dropped against one of eight IRA accused

One of eight Dublin men accused of IRA membership on Good Friday almost two years ago walked free from the Special Criminal Court today after the court was told that the DPP is not proceeding with the charge against him.

Charges dropped against one of eight IRA accused

One of eight Dublin men accused of IRA membership on Good Friday almost two years ago walked free from the Special Criminal Court today after the court was told that the DPP is not proceeding with the charge against him.

Prosecuting counsel Ms Tara Burns SC told the court that the DPP was entering a nolle prosequi in the case of Eamon McNamee.

The decision came after the court ruled that Mc Namee and three other accused had not been lawfully arrested following a garda swoop at a car lot in west Dublin.

Mr Justice Paul Butler, presiding, said that the arrests of McNamee, Kevin Braney, William Jackson and Darren Murphy were not lawful because they had previously been arrested for IRA membership and should not have been rearrested for the same offence on a different date without a warrant.

The judge said that the Special Criminal Court had ruled in a case last year that membership was a continuing offence and it felt obliged to follow its findings in that case.

The eight men before the court are: Kevin Braney (aged 40), of Glenshane Crescent, Tallaght , Des Christie (aged 50), of Liam Mellows Road, Finglas, Eamon McNamee (aged 34), of Larkfield Square, Lucan, Hubert Duffy (aged 47), of George’s Place in Dublin 1, William Jackson (aged 55), of Dooncourt, Poppintree, Declan Phelan (aged 33), of Lanndale Lawns, Tallaght, John Brock (aged 42), of Glenview Park, Tallaght, and Darren Murphy (aged 44), of Rory O’Connor House in Dublin 1.

All eight have pleaded not guilty to membership of an illegal organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Oglaigh na hÉireann, otherwise the IRA on March 29, 2013.

Ms Burns said that members of the Garda National Surveillance Unit observed the eight at various locations in Finglas and Clondalkin on the morning of March 29, 2013.

She said that around midday members of the Emergency Response Unit entered the yard of a used car sales lot in Clondalkin and arrested the eight men.

In follow up searches of two vans, an office and kitchen, gardaí found cables ties, gloves, balaclavas, a baseball bat, a lump hammer, a pepper spray and a Glock pistol.

Ms Burns said that after their arrest the eight men were interviewed at various garda stations.

She said some of them made no reply when questioned, some of them denied membership of the IRA and some of them gave answers to garda questions which were untrue.

She said the court would be invited to draw inferences from the responses of the eight men to garda questions.

Ms Burns said that the prosecution case against the men would rely on the sightings of the accused by the National Surveillance Unit, items found after their arrest, their responses to garda questioning and the opinion evidence of Detective Chief Superintendent Peter Kirwan.

The trial of the seven remaining accused is continuing.

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