After more than seven weeks of evidence there is a sense of relief as the case nears its end, writes Kathy Sheridan
DAVID SUTTON, defence counsel for Essam Eid, did his best to rally the jury. Seven weeks - going on eight - into a case that was predicted to last four at most, the mystique of the Irish legal system has clearly begun to pall for the 12.
Court days have been trudging on till after 5pm, amid threats of 9.30am sittings (the lawyers couldn't agree on it) and even talk of a Saturday court. The 12 chose to refuse the latter offer but they do have a dilemma. A few holidays are in jeopardy. The court has been aware for over a week that two of them have flights on Wednesday and Thursday, effectively placing a deadline on proceedings.
"My speech will be short," said Mr Sutton, "though my short speech may not marry with your short speech. But if it's any comfort to you, I am the last barrister you'll be hearing from in this case."
A few of them mustered a wry smile. "There have been more documents, more witnesses, more rows than I've seen in any other case."
They nodded. Directly opposite, a sombre Sharon Collins sat between her sons at one end of a bench, Mr Eid at the other.
In a case with no consensus on the pronunciation of Mr Eid's name - one man's Mr Ide is another's Mr Eed - Mr Sutton dubbed him Mr Ed, hauling the cheering image of a talking horse into a case already teeming with all manner of human life.
State prosecutor, Úna Ní Raifeartaigh, had told the jury they were dealing with fools, he said; well he remembered a programme called America's Dumbest Criminals and the fool in this case - whoever it was - had got involved in "a stupid and asinine plot worthy of the Coen Brothers", luring in "people who were even stupider".
The hitman website "was a clownish operation run by clowns in the hope of hooking fools". The whole operation was a "shake-down", "a fraud operation from start to finish", a case of Dial M for Money, not Dial M for Murder" - yet it was "dressed up to look like the most important case on Earth, like a federal case", he said, with a little swipe at folk who were impressed by "special" FBI agents and trips to Las Vegas. "And who was at the back of the court while the State prosecutor was giving her brilliant closing speech?
"The Howard brothers, live exhibits in the case, brought in to eyeball you . . . No one was killed here, that is the top and the bottom of it . . . There is no ricin . . . There is no evidence of an amount that would kill anyone. After exhaustive inquiries, some traces are found. Yet this was brought across the Atlantic with the objective of causing murder?" As for the "dubious, inconclusive" government lab tests in the UK, well, he said in a voice laced with sarcasm, "no one's ever wrong in the home office".
He poured scorn on the State's "star witness", Teresa Engle, one of Eid's wives and an "accomplice".
She had been caught "like a rat in a trap", then delivered "the most self-serving and conniving piece of poetry I've had the pleasure of hearing", "waving an immunity certificate from Ireland and a plea bargain from Las Vegas in her pocket".
She lied to the jury, she lied to the gardaí in Ireland and "you are being asked to believe this tissue of lies" of a woman whose objective was "to do down Sharon Collins and Essam Eid at the behest of the FBI".
True to his promise, his address came in at under an hour and Mr Justice Roderick Murphy finally began his charge to the jury.