Mr Patrick Gillane, the Co Galway man accused of soliciting two men to murder his wife, yesterday said the accusations that he met the men in Dublin and asked them to kill his wife were "simply ridiculous".
Mr Gillane (34), of Glenbrack, Gort, has pleaded not guilty at the Circuit Criminal Court to soliciting Mr Christopher Bolger and Mr Michael Doyle in Dublin on a date unknown in January 1994, to murder his wife, Ms Philomena Gillane.
He told his counsel, Mr Eamonn Leahy SC, in evidence on the fifth day of his trial that he never met either of the men in Dublin as they had claimed.
He did not ask either of them to kill his wife.
The start of the closing stages of the trial was delayed for almost two hours yesterday due to an electricity failure in one part of the Chancery Place courthouse in the Four Courts complex. As a result, the hearing was transferred to Green Street Courthouse.
The trial will now continue on Monday - it had been expected to end yesterday.
Mr Gillane said the first time he saw Mr Doyle was in Mill Street Garda station in Galway. He saw Mr Bolger for the first time in Galway District Court during depositions for this case.
Replying to Mr Leahy, Mr Gillane agreed he had driven to Dublin on a Sunday in January 1994.
"I had arranged with my wife, God rest her, to take back ornaments and other things from her previous Dublin home to Galway," he said.
She was out when he went to Loughlinstown Hospital, where she worked as a cook, but he met her later and took the items back to her house. He had told that to gardai.
He had been arrested twice and interviewed for a total of 96 hours in 1994 and 1995 in relation to his wife's murder.
"I was under surveillance for 12 months. The gardai never left the place," he said.
He agreed he had become friendly with Det Garda Basil Johnson and often sat in his car chatting to him because the detective was "a nice man".
When in custody, he had been given breaks and periods to rest during the questioning. He was the person in the newspaper photographs and in the still pictures taken from a video of an RTE news programme which had been used in evidence in the trial.
Mr Gillane said he was a part-time farmer for 20 years and a long-distance lorry driver on and off for 10-12 years.
Cross-examined by prosecuting counsel, Mr Edward Comyn SC, Mr Gillane claimed he had been "persecuted" by one garda investigating his wife's murder who threatened they would get him "by hook or by crook, whether innocent or guilty".
His solicitor wrote to the Garda superintendent in charge and he replied that the garda would be moved to other work. He was for a time but then returned.
"I have nothing against the gardai and don't hold anything against them. They have a job to do and they are not all bullies," he said.
He said his solicitor had been told by gardai that the two men who accused him of soliciting them to commit a murder were "lower class men" who were "fond of a drink" and that was why he referred to them as "winos" when being interviewed in custody in July 1995, at Mill Street station.