THE voyage to Ireland from the coast of Morocco was not a happy one for the Karma of the East or its four crew members in July 1991. Apart from ploughing through very rough seas in two gales and two electric storms while suffering from a shortage of food and diesel, there was a lot of tension on board.
Some of the personnel were uneasy about the parcels that had been thrown on board by two French speaking Moroccans at dawn on July 16th, 1991, about one mile out to sea from Punta Nador.
Christopher O'Connell had told them he was bringing back gold coins and artefacts for an Irish American diver who was a friend of one of his American business contacts. He was asked by others on board to check the contents of some of the parcels, but refused.
But O'Connell told at least one crewman he was carrying gold bars to buy arms for the IRA. "I wanted to do something for my country," he said, according to a detective involved in the case.
Gardai learned that O'Connell expected some person or persons to come out from the Courtmacsherry area to meet them at sea. He spent a lot of time, it is claimed, peering at the coast through binoculars and finally spotted, a light near a slipway.
Gardai were told that he said: "There they are". But nobody came, and two crew members called the lifeboat, which towed the Karma to the pier there.
From day one on June 9th, 1991, when the Karma sailed out of Dartmouth, England, there were problems with it. Several repair jobs had to be carried out at Brest in Brittany, La Coruna and Vigo in Galicia and at Oporto. By the end of the 2,440 mile voyage the Karma was in a bad way when it reached the Irish coast around July 22nd.
When Customs officers boarded the yacht at Courtmacsherry they were told the Karma and its crew had been in the Galway and Kinvara areas for 10 days.
O'Connell told others on board to claim they had come from Galway and were delivering the yacht for an Englishman called Tony Millington.
The jury heard evidence from Mr Millington and others that O'Connell had chartered the yacht from Mr Millington and that it had been collected before the agreed date and before it was ready.
O'Connell told the jury he chartered it on behalf of an American business contact he named as Jeremy White. He said White wanted to bring his daughter on a cruise off the Spanish and Portuguese coasts. He paid all the expenses from an advance given to him by White. This included £6,000 to charter the yacht.
They were to meet at Villamoro in Portugal, but there was some friction, he said, between White and his daughter there and they decided not to go ahead with the cruise.
There were others in White's company including an Irish American diver O'Connell named in court as Frank Sullivan. White introduced Sullivan to him.
O'Connell claimed he had been "set up" and duped into carrying the cannabis either by White or by Sullivan or by both.
I was either set up by White or by Sullivan or both. I ended up getting shot at a year ago. Obviously I was getting too close," he said. "There is nobody in this court more anti drugs than me," he added.
The shooting referred to by O'Connell occurred last year, two days before his trial was scheduled to begin. He was attacked as he entered a Dublin restaurant. No body has ever been charged in connection with this.