The chief prosecution witness in the trial of a Belfast man accused of murdering a taxi driver in the city today refused to give evidence and said he feared for his life.
Damien O’Neill told Belfast High Court judge Ronald Weatherup and three judges of the Special Criminal Court in Dublin that he has been threatened that if he gives evidence he will be shot dead.
Mr O’Neill, who was arrested in Belfast last night on foot of a warrant issued by Mr Justice Weatherup, said he had been visited twice in recent weeks by “men from the republican movement”.
He continually refused to answer questions put to him by prosecuting counsel Tom O’Connell and by Mr Justice Weatherup.
The judge warned Mr O’Neill that he was liable to prosecution for contempt of court if he refused to answer questions, but he replied: “My life’s at stake.”
The judge discharged the witness after he refused a prosecution application to have a statement made by Mr O’Neill to the PSNI in 2007 admitted in evidence.
The president of the High Court in the Republic, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, along with Judge Joseph Matthews and Judge Flan Brennan, are hearing the trial of Gerard Mackin, who has denied the murder of a taxi driver in Belfast in 2007.
Northern Ireland High Court judge Ronald Weatherup heard evidence as a commissioner with the three judges of the Special Criminal Court sitting with him on the bench at the Laganside courts in Belfast.
Mr Mackin (28), a native of the Whiterock area of west Belfast, with an address at Raheen Close, Tallaght, Dublin, has denied the murder of Edward Burns (36), a taxi driver and father of five, of Prospect Park, Belfast, at Bog Meadow, Falls Road, Belfast, on March 12th, 2007.
He has also pleaded not guilty to the attempted murder of Damien O’Neill, the possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life and causing serious harm to Mr O’Neill on the same date.
Mr Mackin’s trial opened at the Criminal Courts of Justice in Parkgate Street in Dublin last month but was adjourned to allow for the taking of evidence in Northern Ireland.
His trial is a retrial after his conviction in 2008 for murder was quashed by the Court of Criminal Appeal and a retrial was ordered. He was the first person convicted in a Dublin court for an alleged murder in Belfast under a rarely used cross Border anti-terrorist law.
Mr Mackin has opted for trial in the Republic under the Criminal Law Jurisdiction Act of 1976, which allows suspects to be tried in the Republic for alleged offences in Britain or Northern Ireland. The trial will resume at the Special Criminal Court in Dublin on Thursday.