FBI agent and supergrass David Rupert was "a deeply avaricious man" whose credibility should have been assessed by the non-jury Special Criminal Court during the trial of convicted Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt, the Court of Criminal Appeal was told yesterday.
In submissions for McKevitt on the second day of his appeal against his conviction for directing terrorism, Michael O'Higgins SC said the court had failed to assess Mr Rupert's credibility. The court had fallen into a very substantial error in dealing with Mr Rupert's evidence during the McKevitt trial.
The verdict of the Special Criminal Court was flawed, counsel said. Mr Rupert was "a deeply avaricious man for whom, as far as money goes, the end justified the means". "Such a witness should be treated with a degree of caution," he said.
McKevitt (54), Beech Park, Blackrock, Co Louth, was jailed for 20 years by the Special Criminal Court in August 2003 after he was convicted of directing the activities of a terrorist organisation between August 29th, 1999 and October 23rd, 2000. He was the first person to be convicted in the State for the offence which was introduced after the Real IRA bomb attack in Omagh in 1998 in which 29 people died.
McKevitt also received a six years concurrent prison sentence for membership of an illegal organisation which the court said was the Real IRA.
Yesterday, Mr O'Higgins said that any information which seemed to cast doubt on Mr Rupert's credibility was significant and it was his case that the court had failed to grasp that. Serious issues were established that could cause irreparable damage to Mr Rupert's credibility.
Mr Rupert in his own words during the trial had described himself as " a whore for money". He said Mr Rupert had been paid around $1.4 million by the FBI and up to £400,000 sterling by the British Security Service.
Earlier, McKevitt's other counsel Hugh Hartnett SC argued that the system of disclosure adopted by the British Security Service had misled the court as well as the prosecution and defence.
"It seems open to interpretation that an attempt was made by the British Security Service to delude not only the prosecution and defence, but the court, by the creation of a document to put a slant or colour on certain things that had been said unambiguously at an earlier stage," he said.
Mr Hartnett said the defence had raised issues about Mr Rupert's criminality but the British Security Service had tried to sanitise embarrassing documentation about him. The appeal continues.