THE signature on the "Moscow letter" was, on the balance of probabilities, written by Mr Proinsias De Rossa, a handwriting expert told the High Court yesterday.
The evidence in the case was completed yesterday, the 11th day of the libel action taken by the Minister for Social Welfare, Mr De Rossa, against Independent Newspapers.
The Democratic Left leader is suing over an article by Eamon Dunphy in the Sunday Independent on December 13th, 1992. Yesterday Mr Justice Moriarty told the jury that closing speeches would be made on Tuesday. He would give his summing up on Wednesday and the case would then finish.
Yesterday Mr James Nash, called by Independent Newspapers, said he believed that, in the absence of evidence of forgery and because of the speed and fluency in the signature, it was the natural writing of the author, Mr De Rossa.
He said that, on the balance of probabilities, the other signature on the letter was that of Sean Garland.
The "Moscow letter", dated September 15th, 1986, was allegedly sent by the Workers Party to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union seeking funds. It bore the names of Mr De Rossa and Mr Garland. Mr De Rossa has denied he signed the letter or had any involvement with it.
Mr Patrick MacEntee SC, for Independent Newspapers, asked Mr Nash what the conditions were when he looked at the original letter in Moscow. Mr Nash said they were good, with adequate lighting, space and quiet. It was a kind of reading room. He also had adequate time.
Asked what view he formed in Moscow of the writing of "Proinsias De Rossa", Mr Nash said he had examined it for any evidence of an indented outline of Mr De Rossa's signature.
Explaining a method of forgery, he said a tracing was done and then one tried to follow the outline. It was very difficult to do as areas could be missed which could be seen by holding it up to light. He found no evidence of this indented outline or a pencil outline.
Even if such was there, and it was not, it would be impossible to follow such an indented outline and write it with the speed and fluency that was in Mr De Rossa's signature in the "Moscow letter".
He was asked about earlier evidence by the handwriting expert called by Mr De Rossa. Mr MacEntee said Mr Michael Ansell bad suggested that there was, something amiss at the top of the two Ss in "Rossa".
Mr Nash said he failed to understand what Mr Ansell was getting at. He understood there were breaches on top of the Ss in the photocopy Mr Ansell had produced but they were not on the original. There was no evidence of that in the original or on the better quality photocopy.
Mr MacEntee said he (Mr Nash) compared his good quality photocopy of the signature on the letter with a range of sample signatures by Mr De Rossa. What conclusion did he reach about the variation in signatures between that on the letter and sample De Rossa signatures?
Mr Nash said everybody had a range of variation in their signature. He was satisfied that the questioned "Moscow letter" signature came within the range of variation present in Mr De Rossa's writing. There was no evidence of forgery.
He accepted that the inner circle in the D in "De Rossa" was smaller than a lot of the ones he had seen, but the D came in the same basic formation, in an anti clockwise movement. It was not a significant difference and, overall, the "Moscow letter" signature was, on the balance of probabilities, written by Mr De Rossa.
He could not agree with Mr Ansell's conclusion that it was a high quality forgery. "I found no evidence of it."
Mr MacEntee asked if he had any reason to doubt the authenticity of the signatures on the letter. Mr Nash said No. There was no evidence of forgery.
Mr Nash, head of the documents section at the Garda Technical Bureau from 1979 to 1989 and now in private practice as a consultant, said he first became involved in this case in 1992 when he was contacted by The Irish Times and asked to examine a faxed copy of a particular document.
He stated his view that the signatures on it were probably those of Mr Sean Garland and Mr Proinsias De Rossa. But he warned Mr John Armstrong, of The Irish Times, that, in the event of a court case, he would need to examine the original document.
On November 19th last year, he went to Moscow with Mr Liam Collins, from the Sunday Independent, and examined the original document at the Centre for the Preservation of Contemporary Documents.
He was given two documents and allowed to sit at a desk to examine them. The first was a seven page document, on Workers Party headed notepaper, which, on the seventh page, contained the signatures of Mr Garland and Mr De Rossa. He understood this document was the "Moscow letter".
There was also a one page letter on Workers' Party headed notepaper, but with a different lay out and on different quality paper, which contained the signature of Mr Garland.
This letter was dated September 18th, 1986, three days after the date on the "Moscow letter".
The one page document was white but the first page on the longer document was a kind of orangey yellow type of coloured paper", and the band across it was red, said Mr Nash. The rest of that letter had "greenish coloured paper".
Mr MacEntee then read the September 18th letter to the court. Addressed to "Secretary, Central Committee, C.P.S.U.", it said:
"Dear Comrade,
"The Central Executive Committee of the Workers Party wishes to send a Party delegation of two to three executive members to meet with the Central Committee CPSU in Moscow to discuss the contents of our letter of 15th Sept. and related matters. The last Workers Party delegation received by the Central Committee was in December 1983.
"The date of course is at the convenience of the Central Committee CPSU.
"Fraternally,
"Sean Garland, General Secretary."
Mr Nash said he had the documents copied and returned to Ireland.
He examined Mr Garland's signature on the two documents in Moscow for evidence of hesitation, tremor, tracing, or faint pencil outline which would indicate forgery. He did not find any evidence of that. He believed they were fluently and freely written and in the natural writing of the author. Mr Garland's signature was very consistent in the way it was written.
One variation in Mr Garland's signature was the rubric at the end of the signature, which was the final stroke. In some instances, it went the full length of the signature and sometimes just went underneath the D part of it.
Cross examined by Mr Paul O'Higgins SC, for Mr De Rossa, Mr Nash said differences between the Garland signature on the "Moscow letter" and the comparison signatures produced in court were not significant. Mr O'Higgins had suggested there were differences in the S and the A in Sean and the A in Garland.
Mr Nash accepted that but said all the differences were within the range of variation that Mr Garland had in his signature. If he had found any significant differences in the signature on the original of the "Moscow letter", he would have no hesitation in saying so. In his opinion it would have been impossible to forge with the speed and fluency Mr Garland had in his signature.
Mr Nash also disputed the suggestion that there was a break in the Ss in "De Rossa" in the Moscow signature. He had examined the original using a magnifying glass and the pen had never left the paper. There was no area where it had stopped or slowed down.
Asked how much he had paid for the photocopies in Moscow, he said he wasn't sure but thought it was about $63.