A NEW YORK City police officer has been charged with murdering an Irish immigrant from Derry, Mr Patrick "Hessy" Phelan, on January 21st this year.
Mr Richard Molloy (31), claimed that Mr Phelan (39), grabbed his police revolver on that night and used it to shoot himself in the head.
That claim was rejected by prosecutors in a Bronx courtroom yesterday. They said Mr Molloy shot Mr Phelan after a drunken argument. Mr Phelan's family and friends erupted in cheers as the indictment against Mr Molloy was read out.
"It won't bring back our Hessy," said Ms Martina Phelan, the dead man's sister. "But we're very happy that the truth of this murder is finally coming out."
Mr Molloy has been suspended from the New York police department and his gun taken away, pending the investigation. After entering a not guilty plea he was freed on $25,000 bail.
Mr Phelan, who served eight years in the Maze prison as a member of the INLA in the late 1970s and early 1980s, had lived illegally in the Bronx since the mid 1980s, working as a house painter. He was well known in the immigrant Irish Bronx community and in recent months dozens of people have picketed the Bronx prosecutor's office, claiming a "cover up".
Mr Molloy, an Irish American whose father is a retired member of the NYPD, was off duty after midnight on January 21 and was in the Oak Bar, a Bronx saloon owned by Derry immigrants. Mr Molloy left the bar with Mr Phelan, whom he knew as a neighbour, and within 15 minutes police were called to a nearby apartment, where Mr Phelan was found dead.
The trial is likely to start early next year. If convicted, Mr Molloy faces a maximum of 25 years.