A Dublin accountant who carried out an audit of International Investments Ltd (IIL) in 1982 told a Belfast court he did not know the person compiling a valuation on property and investments of the company in the Republic was a shareholder responsible for the investment portfolio. Mr George Balmer told Belfast Crown Court that Mr Frank Murray, a Dublin-based auctioneer, had carried out the valuation. He did not know Mr Murray held shares in IIL or that he was responsible for the investment portfolio. "If I had known I would have considered him part and parcel of the management of the company, rather than acting as a professional adviser."

As a consequence, the assets of the company were being valued by the management and, as a result, he would have changed the audit opinion. Mr Balmer was giving evidence in the trial of Mr George Finbarr Ross, who was in control of International Investments Ltd until he handed over all beneficial interest in the company in February 1984.

Mr Ross is alleged to have encouraged investors to deposit funds in the company knowing it to be insolvent. He also denies 36 charges of false accounting.

Mr Balmer said Mr Ross had said nothing to him about Mr Murray's links with the company. He added that he was not aware Mr Ross had transferred his beneficial interests in IIL in February, 1984.

The jury also heard that a Northern Ireland publican was so impressed by the "glowing reports" about IIL that he handed over nearly £16,000 sterling (€26,238) for further investment with the company. Mr Gordon Hamill, a Lurgan, Co Armagh insurance consultant, said that following an IIL meeting in the Stormont Hotel, Belfast, in December 1983, he was approached by Mr Peter Traynor from Blackwater, Co Tyrone, who was already an investor. "He said he wished to invest further monies as he was most impressed by the meeting and the glowing reports given about IIL at the time," the witness added.

In February 1984, Mr Traynor had handed over a cheque for £10,000 sterling, plus £5,000 sterling in cash, and £1,000 for investment. A cheque for £15,000 sterling was sent to the IIL offices in Dublin and the £1,000 was sent to Dublin by courier.

Mr Hamill added that no receipts or other information was received from IIL and he began to make enquiries in late March/early April 1984.

The witness went on: "It was sometime later that we learned the company had gone into liquidation and had been trading illegally when the meeting was held in Belfast."

Mr Hamill told Mr Justice Gillen he did not know at the time that the Dublin office was being run by Mr Murray.

After hearing Mr Ross had gone to the United States "we went after Murray" but finally gave up in exasperation.

Northern Ireland broker Mr Brian Fryer-Kelsey who helped oversee the closure of IIL, admitted in the witness box that more time was spent in securing his and the liquidator's position than realising the assets of the doomed off-shore company. The trial continues.