A man charged in connection with an alleged surveillance operation on the Dublin headquarters of a number of specialist garda units has admitted taking photos of the complex after renting a room in an overlooking hotel.<\/p>\n
Corey Mulhall (41) was arrested in September 2012 after detectives observed suspicious activity at a hotel close to Harcourt Square. The Harcourt Square building is home to the Special Detective Unit, whose tasks include monitoring the activities of dissident republicans.<\/p>\n
Mr Mulhall, of Daletree Court, Ballycullen, has pleaded not guilty to membership of an unlawful organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Oglaigh na hEireann, otherwise the IRA on September 26th, 2012.<\/p>\n
Ms Deirdre Murphy SC, for Mr Mulhall, this morning told the non-jury court that she had been instructed by Mr Mulhall to make a number of formal admissions.<\/p>\n
She said that Mr Mulhall wished to admit that on September 26, 2012 he went to the Harcourt Hotel in the company of a man who had offered him money on behalf of another unnamed man, who was in dispute with gardai, to take photos of a garda who drove a specified vehicle.<\/p>\n
Mr Mulhall booked a room in the Harcourt Hotel under the false name \u201cJason Egan\u201d and requested a room at the front of the building having been initially offered one at the rear.<\/p>\n
He brought with him a rucksack containing a number of personal items, including his camera, and between 14:15 and 16:53 Mr Mulhall took photos mainly of the right-hand-side of the garda complex on Harcourt Street.<\/p>\n
Ms Murphy told the court that there would also be no issue with regard to the arrest and detention of the accused man.<\/p>\n
Following an application by the defence on Thursday, the court ruled that the trial could proceed, despite the non-disclosure to the defence of a document offering an alternative explanation for Mr Mulhall\u2019s arrest.<\/p>\n
The document, which was written under the pseudonym \u201cJohn Kenny\u201d, sets out what the author perceives to be a number of \u201cvictories\u201d achieved by him in an \u201congoing battle\u201d with gardai of the Stolen Motor Vehicles Unit (SMVU), also based at Harcourt Square.<\/p>\n
In the course of the redacted, 10-page document, \u201cMr Kenny\u201d makes certain allegations about gardai in the SMVU and states that by September 2012 he believed the best manner to protect himself was to make the story public in the media, for which he would need photographs of the gardai involved.<\/p>\n
Later in the document, the author outlines how he came to pay \u20ac200 to a man he believed to be connected to dissident republicans to book a room at the Harcourt Hotel and take more photographs of Harcourt Square.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr Kenny\u201d said he gave the man \u20ac200 to \u201cappease him\u201d and came to believe the man was a \u201cgarda informer\u201d and was there to \u201cset him up on a fake charge\u201d. The author states that the man later told him of the events of September 26 and how he managed to escape the Harcourt Street area.<\/p>\n
The author alleges that Mr Mulhall was arrested against this background.<\/p>\n
Counsel for the State, Mr Vincent Heneghan BL, has told the court it is the prosecution case that the activities in the hotel corroborate other evidence that will be given at the trial, including the opinion evidence of a Garda Chief Superintendent that Mr Mulhall was a member of the IRA on September 26, 2012.<\/p>\n
The trial continues on Tuesday before presiding judge Mr Justice Paul Butler.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A man charged in connection with an alleged surveillance operation on the Dublin headquarters of a number of specialist garda units has admitted taking photos of the complex after renting a room in an overlooking hotel.<\/p>\n
Corey Mulhall (41) was arrested in September 2012 after detectives observed suspicious activity at a hotel close to Harcourt Square. The Harcourt Square building is <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n