TV programme prompted testimony - Rupert

The chief prosecution witness against the alleged leader of the "Real IRA", Mr Michael McKevitt, said today he was convinced to testify by a TV programme about the Omagh bombing.

Mr David Rupert told the Special Criminal Court this morning he did not want to testify against Mr McKevitt when he was initially asked by the FBI in 2000. He said he knew from his experience with dissident republicans that were he to do so, he would be at serious risk of being shot.

"Different people were going to be shot for this and thatand I suspected I was also going to be on that list," he toldthe court.

He initially refused to testify but was asked by his FBI handlers to take one more night to reconsider his decision. That night, in December 2000, he switched on the television to a "random channel" which was showing a documentary about the Omagh bombing in August 1998. The attack killed 29 people, including unborn twins, and injured hundreds more.

It was "amazing that it happened to be on that time," he said, and he was moved by interviews with a young woman who had been blinded and a boy who lost his shoulder blades in the attack.

Mr Rupert said that if he were to testify, he wanted to be sure that it would not be "a minor arrest", but in a case that had the effect of "putting this terrorist organisation out of business".

He eventually agreed a contract with the FBI in June 2001 that would see himself and his wife receive over $12,000 a month until they were no longer deemed to be at risk. He later secured monthly payments of additional $7,000 in expenses.

Mr Rupert also told the court Mr McKevitt told him during a meeting in Dundalk, Co Louth, in October 2000 that he had sent representatives of his new paramilitary organisation, Óglaigh na hÉireann, to a human rights conference in Geneva, Switzerland.

They were instructed to make inquiries about securing state sponsorship for the group, but returned "empty-handed". Mr McKevitt was "very disappointed" but told Mr Rupert he had been in contact with Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers through a woman with Irish connections. He was also trying to secure financial support from the Iraqi regime.

"Basically, [Mr McKevitt] was looking out for someone to contact him," Mr Rupert said, adding he was asked to "keep [his] ear to the ground for this sort of thing" on his return to the United States.

On another occasion, Mr Rupert said they discussed a British cruiser that was permanently moored in Carlingford Lough. This was, Mr Kevitt allegedly said, a source of extreme provocation among republicans, who "wanted to do damage to it".

Mr Rupert said Mr McKevitt referred to the recent bombing of the USS Colein Yemen by al-Qaeda, and lamented the fact that the "IRA didn't have any suicide bombers to ram an explosive device into it".

This afternoon, Mr Hugh Hartnett, SC for the defence, began his cross-examination. Mr Rupert told him that he grew up in "a Christian Protestant New York household" that taught him that one shouldn't kill people. He was also taught the virtue of honesty, he said.

Mr Hartnett established that Mr Rupert had been personally bankrupt twice in the 1970s and 1980s and had also filed for bankruptcy for a company of which he was president and the major shareholder. Mr Rupert said he learned in school that bankruptcy was a business tactic that could be employed when needed.

Mr Rupert told the court he had been arrested twice in 1974 for passing bad cheques, but was never convicted. That same year he borrowed the "relatively significant amount" of $2,000 from his father-in-law, but never paid him back as he filed for bankruptcy. The application was later withdrawn.

The 6'5" witness said he would probably have "stood out" in the 14,000 population town of Messina, where he lived in the mid-80s, because he drove a maroon Rolls Royce Silver Shadow. He also drove a De Lorean at one stage.

Today is the sixth day of the trial of Mr McKevitt (53) of Blackrock, Co Louth, who has pleaded not guilty to two charges - membership of an unlawful organisation, the IRA, between August 29th, 1999, and March 28th, 2001, and to directing its activities between March 29th, 1999, and October 23rd, 2000.