The Kalashnikov rifle used to kill Det Garda Jerry McCabe and injure his colleague Det Garda Ben O'Sullivan was fired at gardai during a similar raid on a post van at Kilmallock, near Limerick in 1994.
Garda forensic tests on the spent cartridges from both attacks indicate the same high-powered rifle was fired on both occasions, according to a senior security source. The weapon has not been found.
The 1994 armed raid was similar to the Adare attack. In the early morning of June 10th four masked men held up a post van carrying pension deliveries half a mile outside Kilmallock, after blocking the road with a stolen Mitsubishi van. The gang escaped in the post van with more than £94,000 and fired at gardai who were escorting the cash.
The Adare robbery happened at 6.50 a.m. on June 7th 1996 when the unmarked Garda escort car was rammed from behind by the gang driving a Mitsubishi jeep. Before the gardai recovered from the impact the car was surrounded and the masked man on the driver's side started firing.
The hail of bullets fired into the blue Mondeo Garda car may have taken less than two seconds to discharge, according to evidence from a ballistics expert. In a test fire the weapon could fire 15 rounds in 1.6 seconds when set to fully automatic.
Det Garda McCabe, who was in the passenger seat, was killed by a bullet in the back which collapsed both his lungs and severed his spinal column.
Fifteen rounds were fired from the rifle at Det Garda McCabe and Det Garda Ben O'Sullivan, 10 of which struck the unmarked car they were in. A 16th bullet was found on the seat of a Lancer car abandoned near Granagh in Co Limerick. In a test fire this model of rifle discharged 15 rounds in 1.6 seconds.
The trial of the five accused at the Special Criminal Court heard that one of the raiders in Adare opened fire "without any warning". Det Garda Ben O'Sullivan gave a graphic description of the events of June 7th 1996.
He realised Det Garda McCabe was "in great difficulty" and described discovering his partner was dead.
"His hand was contorting, his arm was blue and white. When the shooting ceased I heard shouting but I had no idea what was being said. I called Jerry three or four times. I said, `Jerry, Jerry, Jerry,'. There was no response. I then put my small finger on my left hand into his wrist. There was no pulse. The pulse was absent."
He described how the first blast "blew my hands off the steering wheel and I was forced on to the handbrake. The driver's window blew in around me." Det Garda O'Sullivan broke down a number of times as he recounted the events.
The forensic evidence linking the weapon to an earlier paramilitary robbery was one of the main pillars of evidence in the prosecution case against the accused. The evidence of three witnesses who withdrew their statements was also crucial.
Before the trial came to court witnesses were threatened in a series of anonymous phone-calls. One prosecution witness, Mr Nicholas Bowden, said in court: "I just want to know why should I be intimidated and threatened before I came to court."
Mr Bowden did not specify the threats. He gave evidence of seeing a man with ginger hair sitting on a wall outside Adare around 5.30 a.m. He had identified the man from a video compilation of republican meetings.
The Tipperary farmer Patrick Harty will appear before the Special Criminal Court tomorrow to appeal his 18-month sentence for contempt of court after he refused to testify against the defendants.
