The Special Criminal Court has ruled that evidence taken from two Austrian bank officials in Vienna was inadmissible in the trial of a Dublin man accused of money-laundering offences.
The court ruled yesterday that the evidence, given before an Austrian examining magistrate in Vienna last week, should not be admitted because the witnesses did not give their evidence on oath.
Mr Kevin Meehan (60), Stanaway Road, Kimmage, Dublin, has pleaded not guilty to handling sterling bank drafts totalling £185,738, £4,500 in cash and a cheque for £4,000, knowing the money was the proceeds of drugs trafficking or other criminal activity on various dates in 1995 and 1996. He also denies removing the money from the State to assist in the avoidance of prosecution or the making of a confiscation order.
The prosecution is being brought under the Criminal Justice Act of 1994, which makes it illegal to assist in laundering money which is the proceeds of criminal activities. Mr Meehan is the father of Brian Meehan who is serving a life sentence for the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin in June 1996.
The prosecution has claimed that Mr Meehan and his son opened accounts at the bank in Vienna in 1996 and deposited more than £600,000 sterling in the accounts. The prosecution has also claimed that the money was the proceeds of an illegal drugs-distribution operation.
The court has heard that Mr Meehan told gardai he believed the money deposited in foreign bank accounts came from gambling and tobacco sales. He also told gardai he lived on social welfare payments of around £60 a week and that large sums of money deposited abroad belonged to his son who had made profits from gambling and selling large quantities of tobacco.
Yesterday Mr Justice Barr said the court had requested under the European Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal matters that evidence should be heard from the appropriate judicial authority in Austria. The evidence from the two bank officials at the Kredit Anstalt bank in Vienna was heard before an examining magistrate in Vienna last week.
The judge said the witnesses were not sworn before giving their evidence to the examining magistrate, which is the practice in Austria. Section 52 of the 1994 Criminal Justice Act, which covered taking evidence abroad, referred to evidence which was admissible in the proceedings in the requesting country.
The judge said that testimony in a criminal or civil trial must be given on oath unless there was a statutory provision dispensing with that requirement and there was no such dispensation in this case to justify the admission of the evidence of the bank officials.