Free Haughey's Forty Years of Controversy by T. Ryle Dwyer Page B

Charlie to arrange an urgent meeting, and they then got together in Charlie’s office.
    â€˜I told him of certain telephone calls that had come to the Department of Defence concerning the shipment of weapons and ammunition into the country,’ Gibbons testified, ‘and I asked him if he knew this, and he said, “The dogs in the street are barking it”. I asked him if he were in a position to stop it, and he said, “I’ll stop it for a month” or words to that effect. I said, “for God’s sake, stop it altogether ”.’
    Although the prosecutor had amassed impressive evidence about Charlie’s involvement in the whole affair, the state’s overall case was already in deep trouble. In order to make the charges stick against any of the accused, the prosecution had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Gibbons had not authorised the importation of the arms, because if he had, then the attempt to bring them in was legal and there was no basis for the conspiracy charge.
    While on the witness stand, Gibbons admitted that Capt. Kelly had told him at their first private meeting that he intended to help the northern people looking for guns. The captain had given him details of the City of Dublin fiasco and the fact that he had another plan to bring in the guns.
    â€˜I seem to have a recollection of Capt. Kelly mentioning the possibility of having them shipped through a port in the Adriatic because I suggested to him – would that port possibly be Trieste,’ Gibbons testified. He admitted that he did not even suggest that Capt. Kelly should have nothing to do with the planned gun-running.
    By the time Gibbons left the stand on the fifth day of the trial, the prosecution’s case was clearly in trouble.
    In a special Prime Time programme on the arms trial in December 2001, RTÉ interviewed some of the jurors, who indicated that the admission by Gibbons that he had not objected when Kelly told him of the plans was vital testimony. ‘You could actually sense the reaction in the jury box because that was the turning point for the whole thing,’ one of the jurors explained. ‘It was the critical moment.’
    Gibbons was followed into the witness box by Col Michael Hefferon, who retired from the army just before the arms crisis, after almost eight years as director of military intelligence.
    Hefferon’s testimony was devastating. He established that Capt. Kelly had not acted independently but with the knowledge and approval of Hefferon himself. Moreover, he added that, as director of military intelligence, he had reported directly to the Minister for Defence on a regular basis and kept Gibbons fully briefed on Capt. Kelly’s activities. Indeed he testified that he told Gibbons that the captain was going to Frankfurt in February 1970 to make inquiries about purchasing weapons.
    â€˜From what Capt. Kelly said to you, who were these arms to be for?’ Hefferon was asked.
    â€˜They were to be for the Northern Defence Committees, in the event that a situation would arise where the government would agree to them going to them,’ he explained. In order to keep the whole thing as secret as possible he said that he told Capt. Kelly to see Charlie about having the arms cleared through customs without inspection.
    On retiring from the army Hefferon admitted he did not inform his successor about what had been happening. ‘I felt that the whole project of importing arms was one of very great secrecy in which some government ministers, to my mind acting for the government, were involved, and I felt that it should more properly be communicated to him by the Minister for Defence.’
    â€˜Were you satisfied at that time that the Minister for Defence had full knowledge of the activities of Capt. Kelly?’
    â€˜Yes,’ Hefferon replied emphatically.
    Hefferon’s testimony caught the prosecution by surprise because there were no references