Real IRA trial told of ?750,000 spy payment

The FBI and MI5 paid an American truck company boss $1.25m (£750,000) to spy on dissident Irish republican terrorists, the trial of the alleged Real IRA leader, Michael McKevitt, heard yesterday.

Mr McKevitt, 53, of Blackrock, Dundalk, Co Louth, denies membership of the renegade paramilitary group and directing terrorism. He is the first person in the Irish Republic to face the latter charge, introduced after the August 1998 Omagh bomb, which killed 29 people.

Dublin's special no-jury criminal court heard that the case would turn on the credibility of the chief prosecution witness, David Rupert, who will start testifying on Monday.

George Birmingham, prosecuting, said Mr Rupert, whose business had run into financial problems, built up extensive contacts with dissident republicans during frequent visits to Ireland from 1992 onwards.

In the summer of 1994 the FBI asked him to supply information, initially on a fairly informal expenses-only arrangement. In January 1997 he was put on the FBI payroll, and a few months later started to work for MI5.

Mr Rupert was first told about the Real IRA by Michael Donnelly, a Derry republican, who introduced him to Mr McKevitt in a Monaghan hotel on August 29 1999.

At that first meeting, Mr Birmingham said, it was clear to Mr Rupert that Mr McKevitt was in charge. Even though he was not known as the chief of staff, he was very "hands on".

Mr McKevitt told Mr Rupert that the Real IRA built the Omagh bomb, but another group, the Continuity IRA, chose the target and planted it. He also said he had set up a four-man computer hacking cell because he believed the future was in cyber-terrorism.

Yesterday Mr McKevitt, a small balding man with glasses, gave a clenched fist salute to his wife, Bernadette Sands-McKevitt, as he entered the dock. She sat with other relatives in the public gallery, a few feet from Lawrence Rush, whose wife, Libby, was killed at Omagh.

Mr Rush shouted "What about Omagh?" as the charges were put to the defendant.

Mr McKevitt took copious notes throughout the proceedings.

Mr Birmingham said Mr Rupert met Mr McKevitt more than 20 times over the next few years, sometimes alone, sometimes with other senior Real IRA members, whom he named as Liam Campbell and Frank O'Neill, as well as members of the group's bomb-making section.

The prosecutor said Mr McKevitt discussed his former role as a Provisional IRA quartermaster and gave detailed analysis of Real IRA strategy.

He said Mr McKevitt talked of targets outside Ireland, such as London, and of wreaking a huge financial toll, of targeting Stormont assembly members and Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams's holiday home in Co Donegal.

Mr McKevitt talked of targeting police but ruled out Mr Donnelly's suggestion that they shoot an RUC man in Derry as "not spectacular enough".

Mr McKevitt asked Mr Rupert to bring items back from the US, including marine magnets for use in bombs; encryption software, giant flashbulbs and spy equipment catalogues. On one occasion he was asked to get four electronic personal organisers, which he later discovered could be used for remote bomb detonation.

On visits to America Mr Rupert also met key figures, such as the Real IRA's "US weapons man" - known by the pseudonym "Mr Smith".

Mr Birmingham said Mr Rupert, who sent his material to the security agencies in encrypted emails, was not an accomplice, an active terrorist or a supergrass. He had not participated in crime: his role was simply intelligence gathering.

He said Mr Rupert was a "figure of quite remarkable courage" who had operated for several years with "extraordinary skills".