Garda saw two IRA accused walk to house where man who said they threatened to shoot him lived, court hears
A National Surveillance Unit garda saw two men accused of IRA membership walk up the driveway of a house where a man who has said the men threatened to shoot him was living, the Special Criminal Court has heard.
Kevin Braney (44), with an address at Glenshane Crescent, Tallaght, Dublin 24 and Ciaran Maguire (30), of Kippure Park, Finglas, Dublin 11, have both pleaded not guilty to membership of an unlawful organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Oglaigh na hEireann, otherwise the IRA on August 2, 2017.
It is the prosecution's case that one of two accused men told another man in County Meath that they were the IRA and if he did not drop a claim against a former employer the next time they saw him they would shoot him.
Today under cross-examination, a member of the National Surveillance Unit (NSU), whose identity is protected by order of the court, told Rosario Boyle SC, for Mr Braney, that he was in on the evening of July 13 last year when he saw a Ford Mondeo park in an estate opposite where the alleged victim of the threat lived.
The guard said that he then saw Mr Braney and Mr Maguire walk up the driveway of a house.
Previously, a man has told the court that on that evening two men called to the same house and said they were the IRA, threatening to shoot him.
Earlier, Mr Justice Tony Hunt, presiding, sitting with Judge Gerard Griffin and Judge Flann Brennan, ruled that an interview gardai conducted with Mr Maguire under a section which allows a court to draw inferences from a suspected person's failure or refusal to answer certain material questions is not admissible.
Sean Carroll SC, for Mr Maguire, had objected to the evidence, arguing that the section had not been properly explained by detectives to his client.
The trial is expected to hear closing speeches tomorrow from prosecution and defence barristers.
