FBI agents attending the Special Criminal Court trial of alleged "Real IRA" leader Mr Michael McKevitt flew to the United States yesterday to study tapes of interviews given by the chief prosecution witness to American journalists.
A Chicago court ordered that Abdon Pallasch and Robert Herguth of the Chicago Sun-Times and Flynn McRoberts of the Chicago Tribune should hand over the taped interviews given by Mr David Rupert for a possible book on his infiltration of dissident republican groups in Ireland and the US. Mr McKevitt's legal team had sought the tapes as part of his defence at the Special Criminal Court trial.
Yesterday Mr George Birmingham SC, prosecuting, told the court that the tapes were due to be handed over to the FBI for "vetting" at 3 p.m. Irish time. He said the tapes had to be studied for sensitive material by people who were centrally involved in the investigation and most of those people were here in Ireland.
"A team of people who have been assembled and who will work on this over the weekend will fly from Dublin," he added.
Mr Birmingham said it was hoped to complete the examination of the tapes by close of business on Monday and the prosecution would then have to consider the material. He asked the court in the circumstances to defer cross-examination of Mr Rupert by Mr McKevitt's lawyers until next Wednesday.
In a separate development, Mr Birmingham said that earlier he had told the court that possible contempt action was being taken over articles by one journalist in one particular publication.
He said the prosecution had become aware of a specific article in a periodical and there were serious concerns that it was a deliberate attempt to seek to influence the court. He said action would also be taken about this article.
Mr McKevitt's counsel Mr Hugh Hartnett SC said the defence team had constantly been writing to the State complaining about matters appearing in the press.
It was the 11th day of the trial of Mr McKevitt (53), Beech Park, Blackrock, Dundalk, Co Louth. He is charged with membership of the IRA between August 29th, 1999, and March 28th, 2001, and with directing its activities.
Mr Rupert (51), a former trucking company boss and bar owner, has told the court that he infiltrated dissident republican groups for the FBI and the British Security Service (MI5).
The court has heard that Mr Mr Rupert was paid $1.25 million (€1.7 million) for his work. Mr Rupert has claimed that Mr McKevitt told him he wanted to set up a new dissident republican terrorist group which would carry out attacks in Britain and that he was seeking outside help, including from Iraq, for the group.
Cross-examination of Mr Rupert is expected to resume on Wednesday.