[A-List] UK state: Northern Ireland, US involvement

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Omagh bomb documentary swayed FBI witness's decision to testify

TED OLIVER
The Scotsman, 27 June 2003

DAVID Rupert, an FBI/MI5 double agent, agreed to give evidence against
Michael McKevitt, the alleged leader of the Real IRA, after seeing a
documentary about the Omagh bomb on television in the United States, he told
a court yesterday.

Mr Rupert, 51, had originally decided against testifying because of the
long-term threat to the lives of his wife and himself. But after his FBI
handlers asked him to sleep on his decision, he was flicking through the TV
channels in his hotel room and stumbled upon a programme about Omagh.

He told Dublin's special criminal court: "There just happened to be a
special about Omagh that night which featured a young lady who had been
blinded and a boy who had lost his shoulder bones. After seeing that show, I
found it just amazing that it was on just at that time, I decided to
testify. I told the FBI that they had to dismantle this organisation - not
just a minor arrest in the US. They had to put this scary organisation out
of business."

Once he signed the contract, Mr Rupert was paid just over $12,000 a month,
with guaranteed expenses of more than $7,000. The FBI also agreed to pay him
a lump sum equivalent to three years' payments once the trial was finished,
the court has been told.

McKevitt denies charges of membership of an illegal organisation and
directing terrorism.

Mr Rupert was recruited by the FBI and later loaned to MI5 to gather
information on dissident republican groups and he says that he became
trusted by many of their leaders, including McKevitt.

As part of his evidence, he told the court McKevitt was furious when a
car-bomb was found outside a police station in Northern Ireland. "He told me
he was extremely concerned because it was in a residential area and could
have been another Omagh," Mr Rupert said.

"The bomb was intended for an army patrol, but either the volunteers couldn'
t find it or it hadn't turned up and rather than lose it, they left it at
the police station.

"McKevitt said the only car-bombs in the future would be in central London
or at military establishments."

And referring to a car journey with McKevitt along the shores of Carlingford
Lough, near Warrenpoint, Mr Rupert said: "Speaking in the first person, he
spoke of a bombing that had taken place in which 19 British soldiers died
and he went into great detail about how it was done.

"He also pointed out a British warship that sat in the middle of the lough
and said republicans looked on that as an insult.

"This was just after Arab terrorists had blown up a US ship and he said it
was unfortunate that the IRA didn't have any suicide bombers to ram an
explosive device into it. We went on to discuss obtaining a remote control
vessel."

Mr Rupert said he was handed a bag of bomb- making materials and a gun in a
US hotel room which he was supposed to hide in an arms dump before smuggling
them into Ireland.

Under cross-examination, Mr Rupert admitted he had been declared bankrupt
three times in the US and failed to pay debts to, among others, a dentist
and a hardware store in New York State.

He also admitted that he had owned a De Lorean sports car and a Silver
Shadow Rolls Royce at about that time.

The trial continues.