Man jailed for five years for IRA membership
A Dublin man who a top garda said had been a member of the IRA since he was 15 years old, has been jailed for five years at the Special Criminal Court.
Vincent Kelly, who was arrested wearing an Oglaigh na hEireann t-shirt, was found guilty by the three-judge court earlier this month of being a member of the IRA on June 7 last year.
Kelly, who is now 21, of Empress Place, Ballybough, Dublin was arrested when gardaí found a handgun hidden inside a van on the Malahide Road in Dublin, along with a canister of CS gas, rounds of ammunition, two balaclavas and two pairs of gloves.
He had denied being a member of an unlawful organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Oglaigh na hEireann, otherwise the IRA on June 7, 2005.
Passing judgement Mr Justice Richard Johnson said Kelly had been convicted of a serious offence that carries a potential penalty of eight years imprisonment.
However he said he was taking into consideration the age of the accused, the fact that he did not give evidence, his community and sporting work and his family circumstances.
However, he noted that Kelly had previously been convicted of the offence of unlawful drilling or marching for which he had received a three-year suspended sentence.
During the sentence hearing Detective Superintendent Diarmuid O’Sullivan told Mr Remy Farrell BL (with Mr Tom O’Connell SC) prosecuting, that Kelly had been convicted of this offence on November 6, 2000.
He said he had attended a training camp for the Real IRA and had been arrested during the course of a training session when he was between 14 and 15 years old.
Det Supt O’Sullivan said that in this latest offence the accused had been arrested after gardaí stopped a white Astra van on the Malahide Road outside a house that had been linked to drug related activities.
When Kelly, who was a front passenger seat in the van, was approached by Garda Anna Marie Gilmartin from Clontarf station he had claimed he was on his way to get chips.
The driver of the van then opened the back doors and a third man escaped on foot in the direction of a nearby school.
Kelly was detained for the purpose of a drugs search.
Nothing was found, but the van was later found to contain a canister of CS gas, two balaclavas, two pairs of black gloves and a semi-automatic 9mm handgun with two rounds of ammunition, which was found to be in working order.
A fingerprint linked to Kelly was found in the back of the van, near where the items were found.
The van had been travelling in convoy with a black BMW that immediately pulled away from the scene but was later stopped and searched, yielding no evidence.
Det Supt O’Sullivan said during questioning Kelly had made no effort to address questions put to him and had not been of any assistance to the gardaí.
Mr Diarmaid McGuinness SC, defending, said his client was the only person to have been convicted in relation to the two vehicles that were stopped and searched.
He said his client had fathered a young son in the last month and was of some support to his grandmother.
He was also an active member of his local GAA club and was involved in voluntary work including summer projects and sporting activities for children in his community.
Mr McGuinness claimed the items found in the van had not been forensically linked to his client in any way.
He applied for leave to appeal against both conviction and sentence, which was refused by the court.
