Court told of passport find at home of IRA libel case man

A passport bearing the photograph of Co Louth farmer Mr Thomas Murphy, but in the name of another man, was found during a Garda search of the Murphy family home in 1989, the High Court was told yesterday.

No charges were preferred against Mr Murphy, retired Garda Det Insp Dan Prenty said.

He was giving evidence on the fourth day of an action taken by Mr Murphy, of Ballybinaby, Hackballscross, Dundalk, over an article published in the Sunday Times on June 30th, 1985.

The article dealt with an IRA campaign to bomb British seaside resorts and contained a reference to a "Slab" Murphy. Mr Murphy has told the court he is known as "Slab" Murphy and claims he was libelled in the article.

In court yesterday, Mr Prenty said that on June 27th 1989 he was involved in a Garda search of a house owned by Mrs Elizabeth Murphy, mother of Mr Thomas Murphy, at Ballybinaby. The house straddled the Border.

Three passports were found in the house, he said. Two featured photographs of Mr Murphy and each had the birthdate of August 26th, 1949. One was issued in 1979 and the other in 1989.

The third passport was in the name of Jim Faughey and the photograph featured appeared to be of Mr Murphy, Mr Prenty said. The birthdate was August 26th 1951 and the issue date was 1983.

Mr Prenty said Mr Murphy had telephoned him later that day and appeared for questioning by gardai some days later. The Garda intention was to question him about his activities on dates surrounding the murder of two RUC men. Mr Murphy was released without charge.

He was also involved in a search of lands owned by the Murphys in 1988. On lands owned by Mrs Elizabeth Murphy, an oil tank was found buried within the walls of a derelict building some 200 yards from the Murphy family home.

Submerged in water in the tank, gardai found a number of bullets. One could have no doubt they were bullets. Also found were "fin-like" objects which were of a type used with mortars.

Cross-examined by Mr Eamon Leahy SC, for Mr Murphy, he agreed a person could pass by where the tank was and not see anything out of the ordinary. He agreed the objects located were submerged in the tank and included spent shells and that no charges were preferred against Mr Murphy in relation to the tank or the search at his mother's home.

He agreed he does some work as a private investigator. He said he had never worked for the Sunday Times but agreed he had served summonses in relation to the present case for solicitors A & L Goodbody who were working for the newspaper. He had also helped locate certain gardai.

Mr Patrick Scullion, head official at the Passport Office, said he could find no record of a passport issued in the name of Jim or James Faughey.

He said a batch of 100 unissued but numbered passports went missing in 1984. Three of them were returned in 1989 by the Dutch authorities. The passport in the name of Jim Faughey was among those which went missing. The numbers on the passports that went missing were never used again.

The passports returned by the Dutch authorities were in the name of James Shortt, Thomas Burns and John O'Toole. They were from the same batch as the number on the Faughey passport. The Dutch authorities also returned two other passports, not from the same series of the 100 stolen.

One, in the name of Michael Bennett, had never been issued. They thought it was from a previous theft of passports from printers in 1982. All five passports returned had photographs of what looked to be the same person.

Insp Edward Aerkhon of the Dutch police said there was a raid on an apartment in Amsterdam in January 16th 1996 and three people were arrested. They were Gerard Kelly, William Kelly and Brendan McFarlane.

About 17, mainly Irish, passports, driving licences, maps of Europe and money were found. Some of the driving licences had identical names to the passports. He made a record of the numbers and names on the passports. They were in a number of names and had photos of the Kellys and McFarlane.

Gerard Kelly and McFarlane were wanted by the British authorities because they had escaped from the Maze prison and were extradited to Britain. William Kelly was deported to Belgium.

Mr David Jones, a consultant document examiner, said he had examined handwritten entries on three Irish passports in the names of Jim Faughey, John O'Toole and Thomas Burns and found significant similarities in the entries on all three.

It was his opinion there was evidence to show all three sets of details had been written by the same person.

While he could not exclude the possibility of another person being involved, he considered it unlikely and, on the balance of probabilities, would say the details on all three passports had a common ownership.

Det Const Alan Nash, attached to the Metropolitan Police, London, said he had worked with the Anti-Terrorist Squad in 1986 and in June that year attended the trial of Patrick Magee, Gerard McDonnell, Peter Sherry, Ella O'Dwyer and Martina Andersen at the Old Bailey. Magee was charged with five counts of murder and placing a bomb at the Grand Hotel, Brighton, in 1984 and the others were charged in connection with a conspiracy to place bombs at seaside resorts in England in 1985. All were convicted.

Det Nash said he was exhibits officer in the trial and among the items he looked after were three Irish passports which he originally received from Glasgow police who had arrested the convicted persons. One was in the name of Sandra Holland but featured a photograph of Ella O'Dwyer; the second was in the name of Mary Webster but featured a photograph of Martina Andersen and the third was in the name of Peter Byrne, but featured a photograph of Peter Sherry.

Det Garda Joseph Keogh said he was involved in interviewing Thomas Murphy at Dundalk Garda station in June 1989 following the search in which the Faughey passport was found. He had been arrested under section 30 of the Offences against the State Act in relation to alleged IRA membership. Mr Murphy made no response when shown the Faughey passport. He agreed no charge was preferred.

The hearing continues today before Mrs Justice McGuinness and a jury.