Gerrit Isenborger arrived for his sentencing hearing yesterday clutching a small bag of clothes in anticipation of spending the night in prison. But almost two hours later the German national emerged from the courthouse effectively a free man.
Isenborger did not grin broadly like his solicitor after the four-year suspended sentence was passed down. His expression was instead one of deep relief to have come to the end of a troubled 16 months which started when he shot and wounded three men attempting to evict him and his terminally-ill mother, Pauline, from a remote Co Cavan farmhouse.
When Judge Joseph Mathews delivered his judgement and passed sentence on him yesterday, Isenborger stood bolt upright from the bench, his eyes momentarily welling with tears. Judge Mathews said he hoped he could put behind him the "tragedy of big proportions" and "meet the future purposefully".
Isenborger told The Irish Times last year that his mother, who had cancer and was bedridden, had ended her own life at the start of the siege by taking tablets she had got from friends in Germany. He spoke to this reporter in the home of a friend at Carrigallen, Co Leitrim, shortly after he was released on bail by Cavan District Court in January 1997.
He said his mother had rampant cancer, and a doctor who had examined her the previous month said she had only about a month to live. She had said many times that if an eviction was imminent she would end her life by taking tablets.
"I always kept her away from this because I said it was impossible," said Isenborger. "But she was right and when she said `What if they come?' I said `You can take them'. So I had to promise her."
Isenborger said he had shot at the sheriff and his assistants to keep them at bay so she could pass away peacefully. He had not intended to hurt the men. The guns he had used were 50 to 150 years old and were collector's items from Germany.
"We agreed that when she heard the first round fired she would take them [the tablets] and when I came back she was already in a coma."
Isenborger said his mother took the tablets at about 12.30 p.m. She died at around 6 p.m. "I just went in and I said that's it, the bastards are coming, and then I went out," he said.
Isenborger said his mother had a doctorate in philosophy and had made television and radio documentaries in Germany during the 1950s.
A mild and intelligent man with a dry sense of humour, Isenborger had lived for several years with his mother in the cottage near Bawnboy, which was described in court yesterday as a hovel.
It was owned by Mr Michael Hehle, an Austrian businessman and Isenborger's former employer. Relations were clearly strained between Isenborger and Mr Hehle, of the Drumcoura City wild west-style equestrian centre in Ballinamore, Co Leitrim.
Speaking at the time of the eviction, Mr Hehle said he had allowed Isenborger to live in the Bawnboy cottage rent-free in return for him carrying out repairs and general caretaking duties, but that Isenborger had failed to honour this agreement.
Isenborger maintained he had worked on the house and out-buildings and said that plans to turn it into a facility for people on trekking holidays from Drumcoura City to stay in overnight had never materialised.
Mr Hehle's legal efforts to evict Isenborger started in July 1995, when he secured an order for possession of the house. The deadline had been extended several times. In October 1996 a civil action by Isenborger against Mr Hehle for about £30,000 in damages for breach of contract and work and services carried out was dismissed by Cavan Circuit Court.
Isenborger had felt aggrieved with his situation and had contacted local politicians, RTE and newspapers, but "nobody gave a shit".
He said Mr Hehle "told people I'm an evil person, but everyone who knows me will say I'm a quiet and polite person".
Isenborger said he had sent written appeals for help to the then president, Mrs Robinson, as well as to the Taoiseach, the Department of Justice and the Department of Health.
"The office of the President told me they had to remain neutral but they wished me and my mother all the best, and one week later my mother was dead and I was in jail."