A witness at the Morris tribunal has alleged he was abducted in Northern Ireland and brought across the Border to Donegal, where he was handed over to Garda detectives. Gerard Cunningham reports.
Mr Paul Gallagher (29) told the tribunal how he had been brought to the Border by relatives of a former girlfriend, and dumped out of a van near a Garda detective car in May 1996.
Mr Gallagher said he was assaulted, tied up, brought across the Border, and left there by the Muldoons, his ex-girlfriend's family.
He was then picked up by gardaí, told he was under arrest and brought by the detectives to Letterkenny. He said he heard the Muldoons on mobile phones arranging with the gardaí where he would be picked up.
"I was arrested there and brought to Letterkenny Garda station."
Asked why the gardaí arrested him, he said there were bench warrants out for his arrest at the time.
Det Garda Carroll, Det Garda Martin Anderson and a "big heavy fella" were the gardaí involved, he said.
"I was taken in the back door. I was taken upstairs to Kevin Lennon."
However, tribunal barrister Mr Paul McDermott said it was Supt FitzGerald, not Supt Lennon, who was district officer in Letterkenny on May 11th, 1996. Supt FitzGerald was not on duty that day, and got an account of the events the next day. Mr Gallagher later apologised to Supt Lennon, saying he may have been mixed up.
Asked by Mr Justice Morris why he changed his evidence, Mr Gallagher said: "I could be getting him and the other fella mixed up. Both of them look alike."
Mr Gallagher was also warned that "I can't remember" was not an acceptable answer to questions, when he was being asked about the circumstances in which he made a statement to gardaí in Northern Ireland on January 16th, 1998.
"You are making, in my view, no effort to consider the questions that counsel is asking you," said the tribunal chairman. "It makes a farce of the oath you have taken."
Mr Gallagher said his mother had told him gardaí had contacted her, and said they would extradite him out of the North if they didn't get to see him about the death of Raphoe cattle dealer Mr Richie Barron.
When he met them, he said he was told that if he made a statement, he would not be charged with break-ins he made around the time of Mr Barron's death.
But he said he could not remember if the six-page typed statement comprised his words or was written by gardaí.