Morris tribunal: Sligo man Bernard Conlon said he confessed to an internal Garda inquiry team that he had made false statements and broke down crying.
After a break at the tribunal yesterday afternoon, chairman Mr Justice Frederick Morris said he understood Mr Conlon was not feeling very well and he adjourned the hearing until Tuesday.
Earlier, Mr Conlon said he was arrested in January 2000 by the Carty investigation team looking into allegations of corruption in the Co Donegal Garda division. He was taken to Manorhamilton Garda station and was questioned about the stories he had told which implicated the McBreartys.
For the first time, he decided to make a clean confession. Mr Conlon said he had made up stories as Det Sgt John White told him to make false statements in 1997 and 1998 to set up the McBreartys. "I think I might have broken down crying in the station," he said.
The tribunal is inquiring into allegations by Mr Conlon that he was told by Det Sgt John White in August 1997 to get caught late-night drinking in Frankie's nightclub in Raphoe, which was owned by the McBreartys, and to be a State witness.
He also alleged that Sgt White told him to make up a story that two members of the extended McBrearty family, Mark McConnell and Michael Peoples, threatened him with a silver bullet at his home in July 1998 in relation to the court case.
The McBreartys were suspected of being involved in the death of Richie Barron which the tribunal has since held was as the result of a hit-and-run in which the McBreartys were not involved.
Sgt White has denied all the allegations made by Mr Conlon.
Yesterday, Mr Conlon said that when he was first arrested by the Carty team he was telling lies.
"I was fired down into the cell then. I was left for half an hour and then brought back up. There were a heap of men around me firing questions at me and shouting."
He was locked up for the night. He thought about it all night and he then told gardaí he wanted to make a clean confession.
Asked by Peter Charleton SC, for the tribunal, if he had been put under pressure by the Carty team and so invented his new statements, he replied: "No, I wasn't under pressure. I was given as much time as I needed. I made a full confession." Mr Conlon said he had been under severe pressure from Sgt White.