Gardaí deny forging interview notes

Two gardaí have gone on trial at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on charges of forging notes of an interview carried out with a man suspected of involvement in the Omagh bombing in 1998 and of perjuring themselves at his subsequent trial.

Det Garda John Fahy and Det Garda Liam Donnelly are accused of perjury in that they knowingly and falsely swore under oath at a trial in the Special Criminal Court in 2001 that notes of an interview they had carried out with Colm Murphy, a man suspected of involvement in the Omagh bombing, were accurate and had not been rewritten.

The two gardaí are also charged with forging notes of the interview with Mr Murphy which took place while he was in custody in February 1999. They are further charged with using a forged document at the trial of Mr Murphy in the Special Criminal Court in 2001.

Det Garda Fahy (53), Glaslough, Co Monaghan and Det Garda Donnelly (50), Cavan, have both pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Opening the prosecution case yesterday, Paul O'Higgins SC said there would be technical evidence that suggested that one specific page of the interview notes submitted by the two gardaí was not the only version of that particular page that had existed.

Mr O'Higgins said that Mr Murphy, from Co Louth, had been arrested by gardaí five or six months after the Omagh bombing. He said gardaí suspected that Mr Murphy was seriously implicated in matters that were a prelude to the bombing.

He said that following his arrest, Mr Murphy had been systematically interviewed by a team of gardaí. He said Det Garda Fahy and Det Garda Donnelly carried out an interview with Mr Murphy between 3.45pm and 5.45pm on February 22nd, 1999.

Mr O'Higgins said there would be evidence that the two gardaí submitted three pages of notes on A4 paper arising from their interview with Mr Murphy.

He said that the arrested man was meant to have given answers to questions which contained compromising material from his point of view.

Mr O'Higgins said that the prosecution would say that page three of the notes of the interview with Mr Murphy which were submitted by the two gardaí was not the only third page of the interview that had existed. He contended that before this particular third page existed, there had been another third page of the notes.

He said that the prosecution would call into evidence a process known as electrostatic document analysis. He said this process examined indentations which are left on paper after another sheet on top had been written on.

Mr O'Higgins said provisions for video-taping Garda interviews had been made many years before Mr Murphy was questioned but it had not become standard procedure at the time.

The hearing continues.