Law allowing such prosecutions was enacted 32 years ago

THE CONVICTION in the Special Criminal Court in Dublin yesterday of Gerard Mackin for murder represented a number of legal firsts for cross-Border co-operation in the prosecution of serious criminals.

The case was the first time that anyone has been convicted in a court in the Republic for a murder carried out in the North. This is despite the fact that the cross-Border anti-terrorist law allowing such a prosecution was introduced 32 years ago.

It was intended that the legislation would negate the impact of the Border when criminals fled to one jurisdiction in an effort to frustrate their conviction for a crime committed on the other side.

However, despite its enactment, suspicions between the authorities North and South meant the co-operation that was needed to advance cross-Border prosecutions was lacking throughout the Troubles.

The trial was only the third in the Republic under the Criminal Law Jurisdiction Act. Under the Act, Mackin was allowed to opt for a trial in the Republic.

The first person to be tried under the 1976 anti terrorist law was Gerard Tuite, the IRA prisoner who escaped from Brixton Prison in 1980. Tuite was jailed for 10 years by the Special Criminal Court in July 1982 for IRA offences committed in Britain.

The 1976 Act was also used in 1992 when two Northern Ireland men, James Hughes and Conor O'Neill, were jailed by the Special Criminal Court for 12 years for the attempted murder of UDR soldier William Eric Glass at Belleek, Co Fermanagh, in February 1992.

Mackin's trial also broke new ground in being the first time that judges from the Republic's Special Criminal Court travelled to Belfast to sit in a court in the city.

They did this in order to hear evidence from a number of key witnesses who were reluctant to travel to Dublin to give their evidence.