A former IRA chief charged over a violent kidnapping today denied implicating himself in the crime under intense police questioning and accused detectives of making up the claim.
Brendan "Bik" McFarlane is alleged to have told officers investigating the 1983 abduction of supermarket boss Don Tidey he was at the wooded hideaway where the businessman had been held captive.
The State also claims that during interrogation at Dundalk Garda Station after his January 1998 arrest he said he was prepared for the worst and prepared for “the big one”.
But, taking the stand for the first time in his trial at Dublin’s Special Criminal Court, McFarlane denied he made the remarks.
He also rejected prosecution claims the first time he heard there was fingerprint evidence placing him at the hideaway was during questioning, claiming he read about it in a news magazine years before his arrest.
“I did not my Lord,” he replied when asked if he made the alleged admissions.
He told counsel for the Director of Public Prosecutions Edward Comyn that although the notes of each of his interviews were read over to him, the alleged admissions were never put to him.
Mr Comyn asked if he believed the comments were added some time later, he said: “That’s precisely what I’m saying my Lord.”
McFarlane was jailed in the Maze prison near Belfast in 1974 for his part in the IRA bombing of a bar in the city’s Shankill Road in which five people were killed.
He was the head of the Provisional IRA prisoners at the Maze and escaped in the mass breakout by 38 inmates in September 1983.
He was arrested in Amsterdam in early 1986, extradited to Northern Ireland and released on parole from the Maze in 1997.
He was arrested over his alleged involvement in the Tidey kidnapping on January 5th, 1998, as he travelled on a commuter bus between Dublin and Belfast.
He has pleaded not guilty to one charge of imprisoning Mr Tidey and two firearms offences.
PA