Weapons seized in the Algarve were aimed at terrorist groups who do not accept peace in Ireland

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Police and Courts
Weapons seized in the Algarve were aimed at terrorist groups who do not accept peace in Ireland.
An inscription of the Continuity IRA calls for the continuation of war
9 July 2011
Journal News
Portuguese

GOOGLE TRANSLATION / FOLLOWED BY ORIGINAL:


Terrorist weapons bought in the Algarve
Judicial holds Irish and two intermediate trafficking Portuguese
CARLOS VARELA

Weapons and ammunition intended for a dissident IRA terrorist group were apprehended by the National Counter-Terrorist Unit (UNCT (PJ in the Algarve, in an operation carried out in collaboration with the British Police. A Portuguese man and two Irishmen were arrested.

Weapons and ammunition were eventually destined to the group Real IRA, made up of dissidents from the IRA, but also with links to organized crime, particularly drug trafficking and weapons, and extortion.

The seized material (ten guns and 250 ammo (It was discovered during an operation, which took place in Olhão, after about a year and a half of investigations of the UNCT, in collaboration with the British authorities that have tried to dismantle the Real IRA, as well as other two groups, the Continuity IRA and Oglaigh na hÉireann. The weapons were seized at the time were being negotiated between the Portuguese and the Irish.

These groups emerged after the abandonment of armed struggle by the IRA. More radical elements and younger have created these three groups, which led MI5 - the British secret service men to step up to operate in Northern Ireland.

The two Irishmen were arrested by judicial police arrived a few days in Portugal, after an intermediary contacts with the Portuguese arms deal, which promised to get some. Contacts have been established using possibly elements of the Irish community in Portugal.

In 2009, two IRA Real Irish then went on trial in Belfast for the murder of two British soldiers, but the truth is that those two elements of the Real IRA, McCaugherty Paul Anthony and Michael Gregory, had been in the Algarve, Alvor, in 2005 and 2006, exploring a coffee in Alvor, but at the same time, arms trafficking to supply the terrorist organization.

But sources at the JN PJ guaranteed that there is no relationship between the two arrests, nor between the two groups concerned. The two Irish prisoners now in the Algarve by the UNCT has already belong to a generation of Irish terrorists, strongly linked to organized crime. In 2008 the Spanish authorities also found a smuggler connections Portuguese - Costa Virott Frederick of alcohol and tobacco - two elements of the IRA, a financing activity of that organization.

This time, the UNCT has found clear evidence that the weapons to terrorist groups would also feed organized crime as a way to finance the activities of the Real IRA.

PAUL MCERLANE / REUTERS

ORIGINAL:

Polícia e Tribunais
Armas apreendidas no Algarve destinavam-se a grupos terroristas que não aceitam paz na Irlanda. Uma inscrição do Continuity IRA (foto( apela à continuação da guerra
9 July 2011
Jornal de Notícias
Portuguese

Terroristas compravam armas no Algarve

Judiciária prende dois irlandeses e intermediário do tráfico português

CARLOS VARELA

carlos.varela@jn.pt

Armas e munições destinadas a um grupo terrorista dissidente do IRA foram apreendidas pela Unidade Nacional Contra-Terrorista (UNCT( da PJ, no Algarve, numa operação realizada em colaboração com a Polícia inglesa. Um português e dois irlandeses foram detidos.

As armas e munições seriam, eventualmente, destinadas ao grupo IRA Verdadeiro, composto por dissidentes do IRA, mas também com ligações ao crime organizado, em particular ao tráfico de drogas e de armas e extorsão.

O material apreendido (dez pistolas e 250 munições(, foi descoberto durante uma operação, que decorreu em Olhão, após cerca de ano e meio de investigações da UNCT, em colaboração com as autoridades inglesas, que têm tentado desmantelar o Ira Verdadeiro, assim como outros dois grupos, o Continuity IRA e o Oglaigh na hEireann. As armas foram apreendidas no momento em que estavam a ser negociadas entre o português e os irlandeses.

Estes grupos surgiram após o abandono da luta armada por parte do IRA. Elementos mais radicais e mais jovens criaram estes três grupos, que levaram o MI5 - os serviços secretos ingleses a reforçarem os homens a operar na Irlanda do Norte.

Os dois irlandeses detidos pela Polícia Judiciária tinham chegado há alguns dias a Portugal, depois de contactos estabelecidos com um intermediário português do negócio de armas, que se comprometera a conseguir algumas. Os contactos terão sido estabelecidos com recurso, possivelmente, a elementos da comunidade irlandesa em Portugal.

Em 2009, dois irlandeses do então Real IRA começaram a ser julgados em Belfast pelo homicídio de dois soldados britânicos, mas a verdade é que aqueles dois elementos do Real IRA, Paul Anthony McCaugherty e Michael Gregory, já tinham estado no Algarve, no Alvor, em 2005 e 2006, explorando um café no Alvor, mas, ao mesmo tempo, traficando armas para abastecer a organização terrorista.

Mas fontes da PJ garantiram ao JN que não há qualquer relação entre as duas detenções, nem entre os dois grupos em causa. Os dois irlandeses presos agora no Algarve pela UNCT já pertencerão a uma geração de terroristas irlandeses, intensamente ligados ao crime organizado. Em 2008 as autoridades espanholas também descobriram ligações de um contrabandista português - Frederico da Costa Virott de álcool e tabaco - a dois elementos do IRA, numa actividade de financiamento daquela organização.

Desta vez a UNCT encontrou elementos claros de que as armas destinadas a grupos terroristas iriam também alimentar o crime organizado, como forma de financiar as actividades do IRA Verdadeiro.

PAUL MCERLANE / REUTERS
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Discovery of 'bomb-making factory' leads to two arrests

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Dissident Republican threat - Discovery of 'bomb-making factory' leads to two arrests
28 June 2011
The Irish News
Allison Morris

The discovery of what police in Co Louth believe was a dissident bomb-making factory has led to the latest in a series of high-profile arrests linked to a paramilitary crackdown in the area.

Garda are linking Saturday's intelligence-led find to the dissident republican organisation Oglaigh na hEireann.

Two men in their fifties were arrested and were still being questioned last night in relation to dissident republican activity.

Materials including partially mixed fertiliser explosives were found in a farmhouse and shed.

Around 100kg of homemade explosives are said to have been discovered along with 120kg of unmixed ammonium nitrate which is used in the construction of bombs.

A controlled explosion was later carried out by the Irish army on a mortar said to be under construction at the site in Hackballscross.

Police have described the find as "significant".

It follows a number of previous high-profile arrests in the area.

In May last year Conan Murphy, son of veteran Co Louth republican Colm Murphy, was arrested in Dundalk in connection with a suspected bomb-making factory.

Mr Murphy (23), from the Mount Pleasant area of Dundalk, was charged with unlawfully possessing explosive materials and is due to stand trial in November at Dublin's Special Criminal Court.

Arrested alongside him was Philip McKevitt (56), also of Mount Pleasant, who faces the same charge. Both men are on continuing bail.

Colm Murphy was previously acquitted of conspiracy charges relating to the 1998 Omagh bombing, which killed 29 people including a woman pregnant with twins.

In an interview with The Irish News he claimed his son's arrest was the result of a cover-up by the authorities after the unmasking of an informer working for security forces on both sides of the border

Dermot Gregory, who also went by the name Michael Dermott, had been charged in connection with a plot to acquire guns from mainland Europe for the Real IRA.

However, Gregory turned out to be an informer working for both Britain's MI5 and the intelligence agencies in the Republic.

Then in December last year four men, including two from Co Armagh, were arrested after being stopped in a car close to the border during a sting operation carried out by the Garda Special Detective Unit and the elite armed Emergency Response Unit.

Patrick Tierney (25), of Drumarg Park, and Patrick Gordon (22), from Newtownhamilton Road, both in Armagh, were charged with unlawfully possessing a mortar and mortar launcher.

Dundalk men Dalton McKevitt (35) and Niall Farrell (34) were both charged with Real IRA membership and possessing a mortar.

An improvised mortar and launch tube, described as viable, was discovered when the car was stopped at the N1 dual carriageway just north of Dundalk in Co Louth.

At the time a Garda spokesman said he believed the mortar was being transported to Northern Ireland for use in an attack against a military target.
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ARMS SMUGGLER WAS MI5 GRASS

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ARMS SMUGGLER WAS MI5 GRASS
4 July 2010
Ciaran Barnes, Crime Reporter
The Sunday Life

A MAN convicted of involvement in the Real IRA arms smuggling plot is a suspected MI5 informant.

Dermot Gregory was fingered by dissident godfather Colm Murphy as being a paid army spy involved in setting up republicans along the border.

Gregory, 41, will be sentenced later this year for helping Lurgan Real IRA leader Paul McCaugherty try to smuggle guns and explosives into Northern Ireland.

Last week a court found him guilty of buying a restaurant in Portugal with the intention of selling it on to held fund the Real IRA to purchase arms.

Car dealer Gregory is currently being held in protective custody at Maghaberry Prison because his name tops a Real IRA death list.

Colm Murphy -- convicted in a civil court of being liable for the Omagh bomb but cleared in a criminal case retrial -- said Gregory gave him a full account of his MI5 spying activities.

"In the run up to my retrial (for the Omagh bomb) Gregory was actively trying to implicate me in some sort of activity to scupper the case," said Murphy.

"He has admitted this. He was ready to go public before he was pulled back into Maghaberry."

Murphy said Gregory gave him a signed confession in which he admitted more than £500,000 was paid to him and a 43-year-old Garda informant.

The letter claimed Gregory and the Garda spy were acting as a team and were involved in setting up dissident republicans in south Armagh and Co Louth.

Murphy alleged that Gregory agreed to do a press conference revealing his role, but had his bail revoked in May and was jailed before he could go in front of the cameras.

The Garda informer fled Ireland after the Real IRA murdered Kieran Doherty in Derry last February.

The Dublin career criminal is now believed to be in living in protective custody in Wales.

Murphy claimed Gregory also told him that they both provided their handlers with false information to try to get extra cash.
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He said the Real IRA had been scheming... and the arms deal would be the icing on the cake

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1 July 2010
Belfast Telegraph

FOR two years he travelled to cities across Europe, plotting a deadly gunsmuggling operation designed to bring terror to the streets of Northern Ireland.

But Real IRA boss Paul McCaugherty's plans had one fatal flaw. His misplaced trust in a man he believed to be an arms dealer -- but who was actually a covert MI5 agent -- who blew the lid on the smuggling plot.
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Real IRA leader found guilty after MI5 sting

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1 July 2010 
Irish Independent

A LEADING dissident republican who was duped by an MI5 agent posing as an arms dealer was found guilty yesterday of trying to smuggle a huge cache of weapons and explosives into Northern Ireland.

Paul McCaugherty (43) from Lurgan in Co Armagh had no idea the arsenal he agreed to buy for more than €100,000 did not even exist and that he was instead being targeted by the British security services in a two-year undercover sting operation.
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THE QUEEN v PAUL ANTHONY McCAUGHERTY and DERMOT DECLAN GREGORY

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McCaugherty & Anor, R v [2010] NICC 28 (30 June 2010)
Neutral Citation No. [2010] NICC 28
Ref: HAR7901
Judgment: approved by the Court for handing down
Delivered: 30/06/10
(subject to editorial corrections)*

IN THE CROWN COURT SITTING IN BELFAST
________
THE QUEEN
-v-
PAUL ANTHONY McCAUGHERTY
DERMOT DECLAN GREGORY
(aka Michael Dermot)
________

HART J

[1] The defendants are charged with various offences connected with an operation carried out by the Security Service which commenced in August 2004 and culminated in the arrested of both defendants and their former co-defendant Desmond Paul Kearns, in June 2006. It will be necessary to consider the evidence relating to the charges in greater detail later in this judgment but it is necessary to say something about the history and nature of the operation in order to place the charges in context.
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MI5 weapons case judgement due

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21 June 2010
BBC News


A judge in the non-jury trial of two men accused of terrorism charges has retired to consider his verdict.

Paul McCaugherty, 43, from Beech Court in Lurgan faces six charges including conspiring to obtain arms and explosives, IRA membership and using money for the purposes of terrorism.

Declan Gregory, 41, of Concession Road, Crossmaglen, denies two charges making property available to terrorists.

Mr Justice Hart is due to deliver his judgement soon.

During the course of the trial at Belfast Crown Court, Mr Justice Hart heard that MI5 secret service agents posing as arms dealers mounted a two year operation between August 2004 and June 2006, directed against the Real IRA.
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Omagh accused breaks his silence

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1 June 2010
The Irish News
Allison Morris


The only man ever convicted in relation to the Omagh bombing has broken his silence over the Real IRA atrocity.

Leading dissident republican Colm Murphy said the attack in which 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins, died "should never have happened".

Describing events in Omagh on August 15 1998 as "awful, tragic" he said: "No-one in their right mind would say any different."
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Accused 'talked of weapons plot'

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27 May 2010
Belfast Telegraph


AN alleged dissident republican told an undercover MI5 agent that his "friends" had bought a rundown house in the south of France to store guns bound for the Real IRA in Northern Ireland, a court heard yesterday.

The agent, known as Ali, told Belfast Crown Court that the disclosure came at a meeting in Belgium with Paul Anthony John McCaugherty, one of three men on trial for a plot to smuggle weapons.
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Friends had 'house for RIRA guns'

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27 May 2010
Mirror
Ivan Little


An alleged dissident republican told a secret service agent that "friends" had bought a house in France to store guns bound for the Real IRA, a court heard yesterday. The agent known as "Ali" told Belfast Crown Court the claim came at a meeting in Belgium with Paul Anthony John McCaugherty one of three men accused of smuggling weapons to the country.

The witness also said McCaugherty mentioned a trailer in Spain which had been fitted with a false floor and lead plates to deflect scanners from finding hidden weapons. McCaugherty, of Beech Court, Desmond Paul Kearns, 44, from Tannaghmore Green, both Lurgan, and Dermot Declan Gregory, 41, from Concession Road in Crossmaglen, deny eight charges.

It's alleged McCaugherty also told Ali about a fraud pyramid scheme.
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Dissident Threat - Trial told of house in France for guns cache

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27 May 2010
The Irish News


An alleged dissident republican told an undercover MI5 agent that his "friends" had bought a run-down house in the south of France to store guns bound for the Real IRA in Northern Ireland, a trial heard yesterday.

The agent, known only as 'Ali', told Belfast Crown Court that the disclosure came during a meeting in Bruges, Belgium, with Paul McCaugherty, one of three men on trial over a plot to smuggle weapons.

The witness said McCaugherty, who was calling himself 'Tim', told him that the house in a small village had been bought for EUR23,000 (about £19,000) and that EUR5,000 or EUR6,000 would be needed to make it habitable.
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Alleged dissident republican ‘discussed weapons plot’

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27 May 2010
Belfast Telegraph

An alleged dissident republican told an undercover MI5 agent that his “friends” had bought a rundown house in the south of France to store guns bound for the Real IRA in Northern Ireland, a court has heard.

The agent, known as Ali, told Belfast Crown Court that the disclosure came at a meeting in Belgium with Paul Anthony John McCaugherty, one of three men on trial for a plot to smuggle weapons.

The witness said McCaugherty, who called himself Tim, told him that the house in a small village in France had been purchased for €23,000 and another €5,000 to €6,000 would be spent on it to make it habitable.
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Dissident guns 'meant to be stored in France

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26 May 2010
BBC News


An alleged dissident republican told an undercover secret service agent that his "friends" had bought a rundown house in the south of France.

The premises were to be used to store guns bound for the Real IRA in Northern Ireland the agent, known only as "Ali," told Belfast Crown Court.

The disclosure came during a meeting with Paul Anthony John McCaugherty in Bruges in Belgium.
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French house intended as RIRA gun store

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26 May 2010
UTV News
A rundown house in the south of France was to be used to store guns bound for the Real IRA in Northern Ireland, a court has heard.


An alleged dissident republican made the claim to an undercover secret service agent in Belgium.

The agent - known only as 'Ali' - told Belfast Crown Court about the revelation allegedly made by weapons-plot accused Paul Anthony McCaugherty during a meeting in Bruges.

McCaugherty is one of three men on trial over the plot to smuggle weapons into Northern Ireland.
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Alleged dissident told agent of Omagh responsibility

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26 May 2010
The Irish Times


An alleged dissident republican told an undercover secret service agent that “his organisation was responsible” for building the Omagh bomb. (Blogger note: Profiles of innocents murdered HERE.  List of some of the over 220 innocent people injured HERE.)

Giving evidence at Belfast Crown Court from behind screens the agent, known only as “Ali” claimed that during a conversation about weaponry, Paul Anthony John McCaugherty (43) who was calling himself “Tim”, told him he was from the Real IRA and that he had the full support of it’s leaders to buy weaponry.

Ali added: “On mentioning the Real IRA I remembered two incidents, one is the Omagh bomb. He said that his organisation built the bomb but the other one was responsible for not only activating it but for placing it where it was placed . . . and that the other organisation, which he didn’t mention, was responsible for the big number of victims because they did not inform the police in time to evacuate the area.”
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MI5 agent in Omagh bomb claim

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25 May 2010
UTV News

Giving evidence at Belfast Crown Court from behind screens, the agent - known only as 'Ali' - claimed that during a conversation about weaponry, Paul Anthony John McCaugherty, who is 43, told him he was from the Real IRA.

He also told him that he had the full support of its leaders to buy weaponry.

Ali added: "On mentioning the Real IRA I remembered two incidents, one is the Omagh bomb."
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Index

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Moved to stand-alone page HERE

(With apologies for any confusion.  The case is currently (May 2010) underway and the index is being buried as articles are added.)
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Secret agent gives Omagh bomb evidence

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25 May 2010 
UTV News

An alleged dissident republican told an undercover secret service agent that "his organisation was responsible" for building the Omagh bomb.

Giving evidence at Belfast Crown Court from behind screens, the agent - known only as 'Ali' - claimed that during a conversation about weaponry, Paul Anthony John McCaugherty, who is 43, told him he was from the Real IRA.

He also told him that he had the full support of its leaders to buy weaponry.
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Second spy in 'dissident arms' trial

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25 May 2010
Mirror


A second Secret Services agent began giving evidence yesterday in the alleged dissident weapons trial.

Three Co Armagh men, Paul Anthony John McCaugherty, 43, from Beech Court, Desmond Paul Kearns, 44, from Tannaghmore Green, both Lurgan, and 41-year-old Dermot Declan Gregory aka Michael Dermot Gregory, from Concession Road in Crossmaglen, deny a total of eight charges.

Earlier, the first agent, known only as Amir, had told Belfast Crown Court he'd never wanted to give evidence. He maintained he was no "agent provocateur" in an MI5 sting operation and at all times his "guide" was his "moral compass".
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MI5 officer: I didn’t act as agent provocateur

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25 May 2010 
Belfast Telegraph

An undercover MI5 agent involved in a sting against an alleged dissident republican arms smuggling operation has told a court he did not act as an agent provocateur.

In his last day in the witness box at Belfast Crown Court, the operative, known only as ‘Amir’, insisted that at all times he was guided by his “moral compass”.
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