Real IRA

The so-called second in command of the Real IRA has been jailed for 20 years for attempting to smuggle €104,000 of guns and explosives into Northern Ireland.




Jailed along with 44-year-old Paul Anthony John McCaugherty from Beechcourt in Lurgan Co Armagh, for four years was 42-year-old Dermot Declan Gregory (Aka) Michael Dermot Gregory, from Concession Road, Crossmaglen, Co Down.



The pair were caught as part of a Secret Service sting operation code-named Nare and Liburna, carried out by "role-playing" MI5 agents against dissident republicans to thwart their gun-running plans.



They were convicted after a non-jury Diplock trial at Belfast Crown Court in June heard from the MI5 agents, described as "Covert Human Intelligence Sources", who outlined the sting operation which ran from August 2004 to June 2006.



McCaugherty, who once boasted it was his IRA branch who made up the Omagh bomb which claimed the lives of 29 people, including unborn twins, showed no emotion as Mr Justice Hart said any attempt to purchase and import a large amount of weapons "must be regarded as exceptionally serious because of the potential for murder and destruction on a large scale".



In all the taxi driving married father of two was convicted of seven charges including IRA membership, conspiracy to possess guns and explosives and using and arranging money for the purposes of terrorism.



McCaugherty's shopping list of weapons included 100 kilo's of plastic explosives, 20 AK47 assault rifles, 10 sniper rifles, 20 handguns and 20 rocket propelled grenade launchers, and several arm-burst launchers.



He'd proposed part paying for the arms shipment by the sale of a Portugeuese restaurant in Alvor, which was supplied by Gregory, a scrap-dealing motor mechanic, and rumoured to have been an MI5 agent himself.



Described during the trial as one of the dissident republican's money men, he was convicted of making the restaurant available for the purposes of terrorism.



Mr Justice Hart told Gregory that "money is the life -blood of any terrorist organisation, and anyone who makes property available to a terrorist organisation helps that organisation further its objectives of murder and destruction, and the punishment must reflect this".