Louth man gets 12-year jail term in Lithuania for attempting to buy arms

A COURT in Lithuania has sentenced Louth man Michael Campbell to 12 years in prison for trying to buy weapons for the Real IRA.

Campbell, whose brother Liam was a senior member of the Real IRA, was snared by a sting operation involving undercover agents from Britain’s MI5 and the Irish and Lithuanian security services.

He admitted trying to buy weapons in the Baltic state but insisted they were not for the Real IRA.

He claimed he had no connection to the organisation, and was entrapped by secret agents who initiated the arms deal and guided it at every stage.

Judge Arunas Kisielius found Campbell guilty of membership of a terrorist organisation, weapons smuggling, and trying to illegally buy arms including automatic rifles, explosives, grenade launchers and a sniper rifle.

“The evidence acquired during the investigation proves that the weapons and explosives would have been used for terrorist attacks and killing of innocent people in the United Kingdom,” prosecutor Irmantas Mikelionis said.

Campbell (39) reacted calmly to the verdict and is expected to appeal. Having spent almost four years on remand he would have about eight years to serve if his appeal failed. He could be transferred to Ireland to see out his term, his lawyer Ingrida Botyriene said, adding: “It was no great surprise to Michael, he was expecting this verdict, but we have strong grounds for appeal.”

The case hinged on an MI5 agent known by the pseudonym Robert Jardine, who was a cigarette smuggler before being recruited by British intelligence.

Campbell said it was Mr Jardine who suggested they buy contraband cigarettes in Lithuania, and then raised the idea of doing a more lucrative deal for weaponry.

Mr Jardine arranged for Campbell and an associate to visit Lithuania and to meet supposed arms dealers who were actually members of the VSD, the country’s security services. They stayed in a rural house bugged by the VSD and were shown weapons.

“You imagine, with a six-hour timer, we could be over to London and back,” Campbell said about explosives in one secretly recorded conversation. “Just tick, tick, tick – gone.”

He dismissed that comment as a flippant joke and accused Mr Jardine of encouraging him to say he was with the Real IRA to impress the men from whom he sought to buy arms for some €6,000.

In surveillance footage Campbell is seen telling a VSD agent a sniper rifle would be used “to shoot across borders – the border, from one side to the other”. Asked who would be the target, he replied “Brits”.

Mr Campbell was arrested in Lithuania in January 2008 with his wife. She was released without charge four months later, but he remained in an 8sq m cell with three other inmates and was not allowed visits from friends or family for about three years.

Lithuania is now seeking the extradition of Liam Campbell and fellow Louth man Brendan McGuigan, who it says are involved in the case.

Ms Botyriene said “many questions remain unanswered” about the legality of how evidence was gathered in Ireland, Spain and Lithuania, and that MI5 had lured her client to the Baltic state because it was relatively easy to secure a conviction there.

She compared Campbell’s case to that of Desmond Kearns, whom Belfast Crown Court last year cleared of alleged arms smuggling for the Real IRA when it found he had been entrapped by an MI5 agent.

Northern Secretary Owen Paterson said he was “very pleased with this verdict and would like to congratulate the security service and the Lithuanian authorities . . . I have no doubt that this will have dealt a blow to the Real IRA”.

REPUBLICAN BACKGROUND: BROTHER FOUND RESPONSIBLE FOR OMAGH BOMBING

MICHAEL CAMPBELL is a member of a well-known republican family from the Dundalk area of Co Louth.

His brother, Liam Campbell, was found in a civil court case to have been one of the Real IRA leaders behind the 1998 Omagh bombing in which 29 people were murdered, including a woman pregnant with twin girls.

A third brother, Seán, was killed with IRA colleague James Lochrie when the landmine they were handling exploded prematurely in south Armagh in December 1975.

There is suspicion the SAS was involved in Seán Campbell's death. A senior member of the south Armagh IRA brigade, he and Lochrie had noticed the landmine they were to prime had been disturbed. They thought rabbits might have been responsible, according to Fr Raymond Murray's book The SAS in Ireland, but went ahead, and the device exploded.

Liam Campbell, who is in Maghaberry prison in Co Antrim, faces possible extradition to Lithuania in relation to gun-running, which could see him join his brother in prison there.

Michael and Liam Campbell refused to accept the Provisional IRA cessation in 1997, and with others, such as subsequent Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt, became involved in dissident paramilitarism.

In 2009, members of the Omagh families were awarded £1.6 million in damages in a civil case against Liam Campbell, McKevitt, Colm Murphy and Séamus Daly. The court found the four responsible for the bombing.

Earlier this year, McKevitt and Liam Campbell lost an appeal against the civil court judgment. Murphy and Daly were successful in their appeals. The court found the case against Liam Campbell was "overwhelming". Liam Campbell has been ostracised by his Real IRA colleagues in prison. He was expelled by the group for "unrepublican conduct" last year. - GERRY MORIARTY