FBI agent Mr David Rupert told the Special Criminal Court in Dublin yesterday that the alleged leader of the "Real IRA", Mr Michael McKevitt, sought support from the Iraqi regime for his new terrorist organisation.
Mr Rupert (51) said Mr McKevitt told him of possible contacts with the Tamil Tigers and said it was "unfortunate" his organisation did not have suicide-bombers.
Mr Rupert told the court on his fourth day in the witness box that he decided to testify against Mr McKevitt after by chance he saw a television programme on the August 1998 Omagh bombing and had seen victims of the bombing.
Sitting just feet away from Mr McKevitt, who was seated in the body of the court flanked by two prison officers, Mr Rupert was asked by prosecuting counsel, Mr George Birmingham SC, if he could see Mr McKevitt in court.
Mr Rupert said: "That would be Mr McKevitt there in the dark suit between the two prison officers."
It was the sixth day of the trial of Mr McKevitt (53), Beech Park, Blackrock, Co Louth, who has pleaded not guilty to two charges - membership of an unlawful organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Óglaigh na hÉireann, otherwise the IRA, between August 29th, 1999, and March 28th, 2001, and to directing the activities of the same organisation between March 29th, 1999, and October 23rd, 2000.
Mr Rupert told the court that during his last visit to Ireland in October 2000 he met Mr McKevitt several times. During one of those meetings Mr McKevitt discussed getting state sponsorship for his group. He said he had sent some of his people to a human rights convention in Geneva but they had returned "empty-handed" and he was a bit upset about this.
Mr Rupert said: "He (Mr McKevitt) said he had contact with a lady with Irish connections who had connections with the Tamil Tigers. We (Mr McKevitt and Mr Rupert) also discussed the possibility of Iraqi sponsorship." Mr Rupert said his subsequent role was to keep his "ear to the ground" for this type of thing and he said that when he asked Mr Mc Kevitt how he thought this type of state sponsorship would happen, Mr McKevitt told him he "suspected that they would come knocking on the door looking to make contact."
Mr Rupert said that in late 2000, as he drove around the Carlingford Lough area with Mr McKevitt, the accused man spoke in the first person and pointed to a spot where the IRA "had killed 19 British soldiers" and went on to detail how it was done.
He also pointed out a British cruiser in the middle of the lough which had been "a provocation" to republican groups and it had long been contemplated how to do damage to it.
"This was recently after the American ship bombing in the Yemen (the USS Cole). He said it was unfortunate for the IRA - Óglaigh na hÉireann - that they didn't have any suicide-bombers to ram an explosive device into it. We went on to discuss a remote- control vessel," he added.
Mr Rupert also alleged that the accused man had reprimanded IRA volunteers for planting a car- bomb in a residential area of Stewartstown, Co Tyrone, because they could have created another Omagh. He said after Omagh, car-bombs were "passé" unless deployed in "central London" or against "military establishments".
Mr Rupert told Mr Birmingham that towards the end of 2000, he set up a meeting in the US with a Mr James Smith, who, Mr McKevitt had told him previously, was ex-French Foreign Legion and one of his "sleepers" in the US. The FBI was in the adjoining room.
"I received a bag full of bomb parts, switches and the like, along with a submachine-gun with the serial numbers ground down," he said. "I had been given a list and transmitted the list to Mr Smith. He was filling the order as much as he could and supplying me with the material."
Mr Rupert alleged that he had "been directed by Michael McKevitt" to place the materials in his dump "for future transportation to Ireland for Óglaigh na hÉireann".
Mr Rupert told the court he did not want to testify in court. "I ranked testifying just below hitting my head with a sledgehammer. I wasn't interested. I knew by testifying it was going to seriously alter the rest of our lives."
However, he agreed to testify after watching a TV programme which he picked by random while flicking through the channels. The TV special was about the Omagh bombing and it featured a young woman blinded by the bomb and a young boy who had lost his shoulder bones.
On January 3rd, 2001, he signed a new contract with the FBI under which he would receive monthly payments of $12,166 to compensate himself and his wife Maureen for loss of future earnings. He signed an amendment to that contract in April 2002 under which the FBI agreed to continue paying the $12,166 and monthly expenses of $7,190 for a minimum of three years.