A man has described how he cleaned and loaded a Magnum handgun and left it for his associates along with six extra bullets, before Veronica Guerin was shot dead. He also described a conversation in which members of a gang discussed whether the journalist could be followed, and whether she might have a Garda escort.
Charles Bowden told the Special Criminal Court yesterday that Mr Paul Ward, the man accused of murdering Veronica Guerin, was present when the murder was planned.
Bowden said Mr Ward also told him that one of the killers had left the murder weapon in Mr Ward's house.
Bowden was giving evidence on the 18th day of the trial of Paul "Hippo" Ward (34), a native of Crumlin, Dublin, with an address at Walkinstown Road, Dublin, who has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Veronica Guerin, a 36year-old mother of one, at Naas Road, Clondalkin, Co Dublin, on June 26th, 1996.
The prosecution has claimed that Mr Ward was a member of the gang that planned and carried out the killing and that he disposed of the gun and the motorcycle afterwards.
Bowden said that when he met Mr Ward two days after the killing, Mr Ward told him that a man (who cannot be named for legal reasons) had left the gun in his house.
"He was pissed off that he had done this and he had to get rid of it. So he jumped on a bus. He said he was scared shitless," Bowden said.
Bowden, a former soldier serving a six-year jail sentence for drugs and firearms offences, has been granted immunity from prosecution by the Director of Public Prosecutions.
He said Mr Ward was a member of a gang which distributed hundreds of kilos of cannabis in Dublin and that Veronica Guerin had been killed because she "pissed off" the leader of the gang responsible for importing the drugs.
Bowden told Mr Eamonn Leahy SC, prosecuting, that at one of the regular Friday meetings held by the drugs gang, the leader's problems with Veronica Guerin were discussed. The man had been charged with assaulting Ms Guerin and was "pissed off".
The meeting took place in the apartment of one of the gang members, and Bowden said he was present, along with Mr Ward and two other gang members.
One member "said that (the gang leader) was upset about this, that he was going to have something done about her. If (the leader) was sent down for the assault he was the only one that knew people to contact to get the cannabis and the whole operation would fall apart.
"He was apparently pissed off with Veronica Guerin for this case," he said.
Bowden said that on another occasion he was in a car being driven by one of the gang members through the Strawberry Beds area of Dublin. Mr Ward and he were in the back of the car and two other gang members were in the front.
One of the gang members turned to him and asked him did he know where the .357 Magnum was. Bowden said this referred to a gun that had been smuggled in with cannabis and had been kept in a grave at a Jewish cemetery in Tallaght.
Bowden said that on the Tuesday before Veronica Guerin was shot, he saw the gun at a lock-up premises in Harold's Cross. The premises was used by the gang to distribute the cannabis.
He was there with three other named gang members. He took up the gun and cleaned it by wiping off oil that had been put on it before it was stored in the grave.
"I loaded it with six rounds and left it on the table with six other rounds."
Bowden said he had met Mr Ward and two other gang members a week or two before Ms Guerin was shot. There was a conversation about another gang member having information that she would be appearing at court in Kildare and that they would know when she was in court and when she was leaving.
Bowden asked: "In relation to having someone following her, having something done, shooting her, would she have Garda escorts on her?"
Bowden said that one of the gang members said the Magnum was not in the grave and he told him it might have been in another grave they used to store guns.
On the Thursday or Friday after the murder he and other gang members were in the lock-up as cannabis deliveries were continuing. He saw an ear piece for a mobile phone and clothes in a black plastic bag.
On the Friday after the murder he met Mr Ward at his house in Walkinstown Road and Mr Ward told him that (a named gang member) had left the gun.