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In
April it was reported in the Sunday Business Post
that Micky McKevitt would be offered a deal. In return
for pleading guilty to IRA membership he would have
the more serious charge of directing terrorism dropped
and would be released from prison within two years.
The reasoning behind this from the point of view of
the state was said by the paper to be ‘increasing
doubts about the credibility of the chief state witness
in the case, supergrass David Rupert.’ The paper
also claimed that ‘Rupert, who is originally
from New York, was linked with the Teamsters Union
in the United States and organised crime, drug dealing
and fraud. ’ In June it further reported that
Rupert's background is a 'murky world of alleged scams
with Afro-Caribbean criminals in Chicago, life assurance
frauds, gambling deals with the Mafia and a string
of bankruptcies.'
Only
this week any such misgivings about Rupert's character
on the part of the Irish state evaporated as three
judges in the Special Criminal Court, which functions
without a jury, politically prostituted themselves
and effectively sullied their own character as a means
to give the kiss of life to the moral corpse that
David Rupert tries to pass off as character. Not since
the supergrass trials of the 1980s in the North have
Irish judges looked so ridiculously servile, demonstrating
that in Kitsonian terms, for Justice Johnson and
his cohorts, the law exists to dispose of unwanted
members of the public. Despite appearing distinctly
uneasy when McKevitt's barrister, Hugh Hartnett launched
what the journalist Nicola Anderson described as a
devastating attack on Rupert's business affairs, the
trial judges went on to describe him as a "truthful
witness".
Although
the same judges would have ruled in favour of truthful
Bill Clinton against dishonest Monica Lewinsky, their
judgement found some reinforcement in those media
circles that have traditionally identified with the
concept of innocent until proven Irish. One banner
headline gleefully proclaimed on McKevitt’s conviction
that ‘the butcher of Omagh faces life.’
At
one stage Rupert told the judges that he had agreed
to become a tout because "from my moral teachings,
I found it morally acceptable to do so". Strange
that the other things most of us find morally proper
seemed not to bother Rupert in the slightest, such
as honouring debts with our friends. Nor was the notion
of hanging out with gangsters linked to former Chilean
dictator and war criminal Augusto Pinochet and former
Panamanian dictator and serial human rights abuser
Manuel Noriega restricted by any higher moral calling.
No - morality simply meant giving evidence against
Micky McKevitt. A morality guided by mammon - The
FBI and MI5 financed this 'moral giant' to the tune
of £750,000.
One
particularly sad aspect of the trial and surrounding
proceedings was the dilemma of Victor Barker, whose
12 year old son James was killed in the Omagh bomb.
As a trained barrister he must be alert to the corrosive
effect on justice that greed-motivated witnesses have.
But in his passionate need for intellectual and emotional
redress he praised ‘Dave Rupert for his courage
in coming forward to tell the truth.’ Mr Barker
has every right to seek justice for the death of his
child. And republicans can hardly question his means
of pursuing it given that none of us have been too
eager to help him. But there are surely difficulties
in weighing Rupert’s evidence that cannot be
reconciled by the mental deliberations of judges alone,
even those who do not seek to prostitute themselves.
The American’s admission that he is a ‘whore’
who would do anything for money can only lead many
to think that had McKevitt been in a position to pay
Rupert more than the FBI or M15, there would have
been no conviction in Dublin this week. The grief
stricken victims of the Omagh bombing are being offered
vengeance in place of justice. But even where revenge
is an understandable human emotion, do those devastated
by Omagh really want to eat that particular dish served
up by Dave Rupert? Most would not buy a second hand
car - let alone justice - from this swindler.
Ultimately,
this was a political trial. Is there anyone who genuinely
believes that were Rupert today to offer information
about the Provisional IRA Chief of Staff at the time
of the La Mon bombing, anyone would face charges?
And were the relatives of the victims to pursue a
civil case aginst the then chief of staff and his
colleagues would there be a snowball's chance in hell
of the British financially backing it? Jane Winter
of British Irish Human Rights Watch has questioned
the outcome of the McKevitt trial. Of Rupert she said,
‘he has an interest for giving the evidence that
he gave. I am always worried about justice based on
paid evidence.’ This point has been reinforced
by Barrister Ross Maguire who made the following observation:
Before
a judge and jury - and operating under the normal
rule of evidence - the case against the accused
could only be described as weak. The evidence of
the chief superintendent would be inadmissible and
Rupert, as he was being paid, could not be seen
to be entirely independent.
Few
would risk inviting public ridicule by asserting that
Micky McKevitt is de facto innocent of the charges
levelled against him. But a conviction based on the
evidence presented - a guard’s opinion combined
with the word of a paid tout - smacks more of legal
chicanery than due process. McKevitt only ever faced
court proceedings to begin with because in the view
of the state he was in its least favourite IRA. The
state’s preferred IRA is still ‘directing
terrorism.’ But in our distorted ethical world,
courtesy of the peace process, for the directors of
one IRA it is Portlaoise, for directing the other
it is Parliament.
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