A witness in a murder trial has told a jury in the Central Criminal Court he saw three armed and masked men abduct a man hours before he was found shot dead.
Giving evidence for the prosecution, Mr Carl Dunne said he was visiting Mr Mark Dwyer's flat when three masked men burst in armed with a sawn-off shotgun. One of the men went "straight up to Mark and told him to sit back down on a chair", Mr Dunne said.
"One of them gave him one or two boots into the body. Mark asked, `What's going on, boys?' and they said, `You're coming for a talk with us'."
Mr Joseph Delaney (54), formerly of La Rochelle, Naas, Co Kildare, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mr Dwyer (23) on or about December 14th, 1996, or to falsely imprisoning him at Foster Terrace, Ballybough, Dublin.
The prosecution alleges Mr Delaney murdered Mr Mark Dwyer over the theft of 30,00040,000 ecstasy tablets.
Mr Dunne said he and the defendant's son, Scott Delaney, who will later give evidence against his father, and who has been convicted of murdering Mr Dwyer, were drinking in a north inner-city pub that Saturday evening.
"Scott seemed a bit jumpy and a bit nervous. He said something might go down tonight with Mark over the missing Es," he said.
After visiting another friend and snorting cocaine, Delaney suggested he and Mr Dunne go to Mr Dwyer's home. Mr Dunne said he knew "something was going to happen, someone was going to see Mark" and he did not want to go.
They went to Mr Dwyer's flat and snorted more cocaine.
Delaney got a call on his mobile phone which he said was from his "auld fella, checking up" on him. "Then three masked men came in. The door burst in and we jumped up. They had three balaclavas on and one had a shotgun," he said.
"One stood at the door and one started ripping flex out of the telly and video," Mr Dunne told the court. Mr Dwyer was tied up with flex and "when they took Mark, they said [to Delaney] `You're coming with us as well'."
One man held a knife to his chest and said there was a scanner on the phone and if anyone rang the police they could listen in and Mr Dwyer could be hurt, Mr Dunne said.
Giving evidence, Mr Christopher Dwyer said shortly before his brother was found dead he saw the defendant swinging a baseball bat, threatening to murder whoever took his ecstasy tablets.
Mr Dwyer told the court he and his brother had gone to Amsterdam in October 1996, at Mr Joseph Delaney's request, to collect 40,000 ecstasy tablets from a contact. Mr Delaney had prepaid for the drugs and they were expected to pick up the ecstasy and give it to a contact in Paris.
A few days later Mr Mark Dwyer was expected to sit in a car while another man collected the drugs from a contact at a pub in Coolock.
Mr Dwyer said a man outside the pub approached his brother's friend, put a gun to his head and told him to drop the bag "and said he was the police and to go back to the car-park", Mr Dwyer said.
After returning to his flat, Mr Dwyer said, his brother was "in a panic". No mention of the drugs seizure was made on the news and Scott Delaney and his father "reckoned it was a rip-off".
At a meeting at the defendant's home near Naas, Co Kildare, that week, "everyone was under the understanding that whoever took the Es was going to be killed", Mr Dwyer said. Mr Christopher Dwyer, Mr Mark Dwyer, Mr Christopher Curry, Delaney and the defendant were there to discuss who "did the rip", Mr Dwyer said.
Whoever stole the drugs, "Joe Delaney said he was going to tie him to a chair and beat him till he told him where the ecstasy was.
"Joe was to have a room prearranged, covered in plastic, and beat him with the baseball bat till he told him where the Es were and when he told him, he was going to kill him anyway," he said.
"He lost control of himself altogether, swinging the baseball bat with his face all red," he said.
Mr Joseph Delaney "said he would have a hole dug in the area and shoot him and bury him and he was the only person to know where the hole was," Mr Dwyer said. "He was quite adamant that whoever had done it was going to die," Mr Dwyer said.
Later that evening the Dwyer brothers met a man in Tallaght and collected a handgun from him at Mr Joseph Delaney's request, he said.
The defendant had expressed concerns for his own personal safety after the drugs went missing, and he believed that whoever had done it would "come after him," Mr Dwyer said.
"Mark handed over the gun to Joe Delaney. Joe didn't know how to use it. Mark showed him how to use it. He took the safety off and just said `Joe, just pull the trigger'."
"Joe said `Thanks, lads', and we got back in the taxi and went back to the pub," Mr Dwyer said.
Mr Joseph Delaney once asked Mark Dwyer if he took the drugs, Mr Dwyer said.
"Joe asked Mark at one time. He said, `I resent the accusation but I know you have to ask, but no I didn't.' He seemed happy enough with it, but he still suspected he was under suspicion at that time," Mr Dwyer said.
Counsel for the prosecution have said previously that the State Pathologist would give evidence to say that Mr Dwyer died from a laceration of the brain due to a single gunshot wound to the back of the head, fired at "virtual contact range."
Stab wounds in his forearms and multiple wounds, possibly caused by a nail bar, were found on the body, including imprints of a gun nozzle on the chest where a shotgun was pressed into the flesh with force.
The case before Mr Justice Quirke and a jury continues.