Gardai believe that IRA members in Co Kerry collected bars of cannabis from a number of small-time local drugs dealers as part of an exercise to try and implicate a Dublin man living in Kerry in the drugs trade.
The man, in his mid-twenties and originally from Dublin, has been living in Co Kerry for more than a year.
He had attended a court case last December in Dublin and was returning to his home in Kerry when he was stopped by a group of men armed with batons near Castleisland. His six-year-old son, who was travelling with him, was taken from the car and abandoned as the men bundled his father into the car and drove him to Lyracrompane Mountain. There the man was beaten and interrogated about his alleged involvement in the drugs trade. Gardaí have recovered a copy of a tape recording of this interrogation.
The man was bound hand and foot with tape and left lying in a ditch beside his car which was then set alight. Gardaí were alerted to the incident when local people reported that the man's son was distressed and unattended after the men abducted his father.
On the evening of the incident a call was made from a cell phone to a Co Kerry journalist directing him to where he could find cannabis. It was alleged by the caller, purporting to be from a front organisation calling itself Kerry Concerned Parents Against Drugs, that the drugs had been seized from the Dublin man.
In fact, gardaí believe the man was not in possession of any drugs. They further believe that the bars of cannabis had been seized from a number of local drug dealers by members of the IRA and then brought to Castleisland with the intention of implicating the man in the drugs trade. The abduction victim has made a statement to gardaí in which, it is understood, he identifies a number of men. Another petty criminal, who gardaí believe passed information to the IRA about the Dublin man's movement has also made a statement.