The central issue in a capital murder trial is whether or not the accused intended to kill a garda who was acting in the course of his duties, a jury in the Central Criminal Court was told yesterday.
Mr Daniel O'Toole (37), of Crumlin, Dublin, denies murdering Sgt Andrew Callanan on July 21st, 1999, at Tallaght Garda station, Dublin.
Mr O'Toole admits manslaughter but this was not acceptable to the State. If Mr O'Toole is found guilty of capital murder he will automatically face a minimum 40-year sentence. Mr O'Toole also pleads not guilty to a charge of arson.
In his summing up for the jury, Mr Peter Charleton SC, prosecuting, said the central issue for them to consider was whether or not the accused intended to kill or cause serious injury when he set fire to Tallaght Garda station in 1999.
Mr Charleton said: "Intention has to coincide with the act, and that's really what this case is about.".
He said the accused "confronted authority in an aggressive way" that night, and holding a burning flare dripping with fire in a room soaked in petrol was evidence that allowed the jury to infer intent, but added it was a matter for them.
The prosecution has contended that Mr O'Toole walked into Tallaght Garda station early on July 21st, 1999, having bought petrol at a local filling station, soaked the counter and floor in the public area with the fuel and demanded that gardai leave the building.
The State's case is that Sgt Callanan, acting in the course of his duties, confronted Mr O'Toole and tried to put out the burning flares he held using a fire extinguisher.
The prosecution also alleges that Mr O'Toole then set the public area alight, where Sgt Callanan was trapped, and that the sergeant subsequently died from injuries received in the blast.
Mr O'Toole walked out of the station and later rang the gardai in Harcourt Square, asking after the garda injured in the fire.
Mr O'Toole's number was recorded at Harcourt Square. He was later telephoned and agreed to meet gardai investigating the case. He was arrested and interviewed, and admitted carrying out the killing, saying he "wanted to get back at the system".
Summing up, Mr Charleton told the jury Mr O'Toole admitted manslaughter, but his defence team was arguing he had only intended to kill himself and not a garda.
"You may look at the suicide theory if you wish, but it may simply be a convenient excuse for confronting authority," he said.
Mr Charleton said the defence would argue that the accused was "an extremely sad, distressed man who wished to kill himself", but that was not the whole truth.
He said the court had heard evidence that Mr O'Toole had held a knife to his wife "as a kind of threat" in the past and on another occasion had thrown down an open penknife on the floor between his children, inviting one of them to kill him.
Mr Charleton said this evidence displayed "the range of responses of which he was capable, from sad person to aggressive person". Mr George Bermingham SC, defending, put it to the jury that the accused had admitted the manslaughter of Sgt Callanan but had intended to kill himself that night. Quoting from legal text, he said it was the responsibility of the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the accused had in his mind "a fixed purpose to reach that desired objective" for intention to murder to be satisfied. "I suggest to you it isn't there," he said.
In his charge to the jury, Mr Justice Carney pointed out that the term "capital murder" was a legal fiction and a type of shorthand that did not mean Mr O'Toole was on trial for his life. "The death penalty has been abolished for all cases," he said.
If the jury found that Mr O'Toole had intended to cause serious injury that was sufficient for an intention to commit murder.
The judge will conclude his charge today before sending the jury away to consider their verdict.