Information that appeared to place a suspect near the scene where Raphoe cattle dealer Mr Richie Barron died was "put on hold" and never followed up by the incident room team during the investigation, the tribunal was told yesterday.
The information said a local woman saw Mr Frank McBrearty jnr coming from the direction where Mr Barron's body was found in the early hours of October 14th, 1996. But when the woman was eventually interviewed over a year later, she said she had not seen anything.
The information, recorded in a Garda correspondence log, might have come from a phone call to the Garda station, Supt John McGinley told the tribunal. It was never brought to the case conferences he said, and was marked "hold" in the correspondence book.
The reported sighting was one of seven listed by tribunal barrister, Mr Peter Charleton SC, which, when eventually followed up, turned out to be untrue. Supt John McGinley, then an inspector, was one of the officers involved in the day-to-day running of the investigation into the death of Mr Barron.
During the investigation, two local men, Mr Frank McBrearty jnr and Mr Mark McConnell, were identified as murder suspects. Last year British and Irish pathologists said Mr Barron most likely died as a result of a road traffic accident. An inquest returned an open verdict in 2002.
Mr Charleton asked the superintendent if "somebody within the investigation determined to frame" Mr McBrearty and Mr McConnell. "Would you say that it is a frame-up?" Mr Charleton asked.
"There are certainly aspects of what you say that I would agree with," said Supt McGinley. He said there were aspects of the case he had only become aware of in the past two days.
An allegation by local thief Paul Gallagher that Mr McBrearty had given him a billhook and paid him to dispose of it, was not given credence by the investigation, Supt McGinley said.