The alleged "Real" IRA leader Michael McKevitt told FBI agent Mr David Rupert that he wanted his campaign to extract a "huge financial toll" in London, the Special Criminal Court was told yesterday.
Prosecuting counsel Mr George Birmingham SC said that during over 20 meetings between McKevitt and Mr Rupert, the Co Louth man had discussed policy decisions and gave his analysis of the situation.
He said that McKevitt had told Mr Rupert that the August 1998 Omagh bombing was a joint operation and that the "Real" IRA had built the bomb while the Continuity IRA chose the target and delivered the bomb.
McKevitt also spoke about how car bombs were "out" unless they were directed at army barracks, how he wanted to take the campaign to London and extract a "huge financial toll" and how his dissident organisation might be involved in a feud with the Provisional republican movement.
Mr Rupert would tell the court that McKevitt also spoke about "cyber terrorism" and the acquisition of marine magnets in the United States for an attack using a remote control device similar to the attack on the USS Cole.
Mr Birmingham, who was opening the prosecution case against McKevitt, the first person to go on trial in the Republic for directing a terrorist organisation, said the central prosecution witness in the case would be Mr Rupert who engaged in an intelligence gathering operation against dissident republicans.
"The case will significantly turn on the credibility of Mr Rupert because he is the principal prosecution witness. The court will be satisfied that Mr Rupert was a figure of quite remarkable courage who took on this extraordinarily dangerous task and performed it with great skill over a number of years.
"He will now come to court to give evidence against Mr McKevitt who is charged with membership of an illegal organisation and directing it," he added.
It was the opening day of the trial of McKevitt (53), of Beech Park, Blackrock, Co Louth who pleaded not guilty to two charges - membership of an unlawful organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Óglaigh na hÉireann, otherwise the IRA between August 29th, 1999 and March 28th, 2001 and to directing the activities of the same organisation between March 29th, 1999 and October 23rd, 2000.
Mr Birmingham said Mr Rupert was born in New York and had been involved in construction and engineering, life assurance and had built up a substantial trucking business which was the subject of enormous claims after one of his trucks was involved in an accident with multiple fatalities.
Mr Rupert, who had no Irish background, first came to Ireland in 1992 and returned in August that year with a woman companion who was a lobbyist in Florida for the Seán MacBride principles. They spent a lot of time in the north-west and they spoke at a hunger strikers' commemoration in Bundoran.
Mr Rupert met a number of prominent republicans in the north-west including people associated with Republican Sinn Féin (RSF) and the Continuity IRA and with Provisional Sinn Féin and the Provisional IRA.
In the early years, his contact was with the Continuity IRA and he moved back and forth between the US and Ireland. The Garda contacted the FBI who visited Mr Rupert in the summer of 1994 and they approached him to work for them in return for his expenses for visiting Ireland.
He identified a premises known as the Drowse Bar in Co Leitrim and the FBI put him in touch with Chief Supt Dermot Jennings of the Garda.
The Drowse Bar operation was not successful and in June 1997 he was offered a contract by the FBI and came on to the FBI payroll.
Some months later he agreed to work for the British Security Service. "He would work for whoever would pay him. He described himself as a whore, saying whoever would pay him he would work for," said Mr Birmingham.
Mr Birmingham said that Mr Rupert was in Ireland in August, 1998 when the Omagh bomb exploded and he was told this was a time of great sensitivity and he should return to the US.
He returned to Ireland in November 1998 and met a Derry RSF supporter who was drifting away from RSF. He had a number of meetings with the Derry man and was told of a coming together of the dissident republican community, including members of the Provisional IRA, the Real IRA, the Continuity IRA, and the INLA and this group called itself Óglaigh na hÉireann.
Mr Rupert attended a meeting on August 29th, 1999 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Monaghan which was attended by Michael McKevitt, a man described as the director of operations, and a prominent figure in the Irish-American community.
At the meeting it was clear that McKevitt was very much in charge and he sketched out the background and indicated that he saw himself as being "very hands on" although he did not want to be chief of staff or on the army council.
He told Mr Rupert that he had set up a four man cell for computer training and he saw the future in cyber terrorism. He said Mr Rupert's role would be to bring Republican Sinn Féin on board as the political arm of the emerging organisation.
McKevitt also spoke about the possibility of a conflict with the Provisional republican movement and how information was being assembled on figures in that movement, including information on the holiday home of Gerry Adams.
The trial continues today.