Charles Bowden told the Special Criminal Court yesterday that he had loaded the gun used to murder the journalist Veronica Guerin.
Bowden, who is under the Witness Protection Programme, admitted under cross-examination by defence counsel, Mr Patrick MacEntee SC, that he had been "an accessory" in Ms Guerin's murder.
However, he said he had not realised the gun he had loaded with six bullets was to be used to kill the journalist. "I believed she was going to be threatened again, possibly shot at."
Bowden is serving a six-year jail sentence for drugs and firearms offences and has been granted immunity from prosecution for the Guerin murder.
He identified Mr Paul "Hippo" Ward (34) as a member of a gang which distributed cannabis in Dublin and said that Ms Guerin had been killed because she "pissed off" the leader of the gang responsible for importing the drugs.
Bowden was giving evidence in the trial of Mr Ward, of Crumlin, Dublin, with an address at Walkinstown Road, Dublin, who has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Ms Guerin at the Naas Road, Clondalkin, Co Dublin, on June 26th, 1996.
Cross-examined by Mr MacEntee, Bowden said that in August or September 1994 he had approached a man he had known and asked him for work. He was given money to buy a car. Bowden said he, Mr Ward and two other members of the gang drove to a hotel in Co Kildare, where he was introduced to a man who would deliver cannabis to the hotel car-park. His job was to transfer the cannabis to his car, drive to Dublin and count the drugs.
Initially, he used his flat in Ballymun but then had rented three lock-up premises in succession, the last one at Greenmount Industrial Estate in Harold's Cross.
He said initially he was paid £500 a week and collected 20, 30 or 40 kilos of cannabis, but the consignments got bigger and his payments increased. Bowden agreed with Mr MacEntee that he began to have a substantial income and spent the money on clothes and drink.
Asked if he had kept the money under his mattress, Bowden replied: "At the bottom of the washing basket in the bathroom, to be honest."
He said he had kept up to £40,000 in the laundry basket and that he had used the money from his drug dealing to buy a hairdressing business in Moore Street in 1995.
Bowden said he saved money, usually in bundles of £1,000, and kept it in a "friend of a friend's house". He kept it in the laundry basket in the bathroom when he lived in the Ballymun flat and had brought the money in the basket with him when he moved to a three-bedroom house at The Paddocks, on the Navan Road.
Bowden told Mr MacEntee he got a £69,000 mortgage for the house after his accountant had provided projected earnings for the hairdressing business.
He told Mr MacEntee he had to change the way he was keeping his money as the laundry basket was filling up and he was afraid of being robbed. He arranged for a safe to be sunk in his brother Michael's shed.
"I think he presumed it was from some form of criminal activity, but it wasn't something we talked about."
He said he kept £3,000 to £4,000 in the safe and had transferred £100,000 to a flat in Mespil Road. He was making about £5,000 a week and the most he earned in any one week would be £6,500 to £7,000.
"Do you accept that you gloated as the sums went up?" Mr MacEntee asked.
"Absolutely, yes," he replied.
Questioned about how he disposed of an estimated income of £300,000 over 18 months, Bowden said the real figure would be £150,000 to £200,000. He had developed a cocaine habit and admitted that he spent £400 a week on cocaine.
He said he had decided to move £100,000 from his house to a flat in Mespil Road because he was under pressure. "The particular pressure was that the police team hunting for the murderers of Veronica Guerin were closing in on all of us." He had no plans to run away.
Bowden said he planned to go to London with a woman for a shopping trip but was arrested before he got to the airport. Det Sgt Fergus Traynor had called to his house and had left a message for him to contact the Garda.
"I knew it was to do with the murder of Veronica Guerin or my association with drug dealing. It could only possibly be one of those two things. I was an accessory."
Asked if he had put the bullets in the gun used to kill Ms Guerin, he replied:
"Yes. I had."
"And you had carried on drug dealing as if nothing had happened?
"Yes."
He denied that he had arranged to go to London to talk to people who could arrange to get money out of the country. He said newspaper reports about the Guerin investigation indicated that gardai knew who they were looking for. He knew gardai were looking for the gang leader and admitted he knew the gang leader and had met him three times.
"It was blatantly obvious to me that gardai were on to me and, having this money in the house, I had to get rid of it."
He said he did not think the Garda knew he was a member of the drugs gang. The gang had discussed ways of dealing with the large amounts of money it was making.
He said he was thinking about getting the money into a bank account in the Isle of Man. "I had to get away, I was stressed. I wanted to get away, just running away from this problem," he said about his planned weekend in London.
He admitted he had planned to take the woman who was a hairdresser with him for a shopping weekend to impress her but denied that he was having an affair with her or that he had had sexual intercourse with her. However, he did admit he was planning "a weekend of infidelity".