Jonathan Dowdall has rejected a defence assertion today that he is lying when he says Gerard Hutch confessed to him in February 2016 that he had shot David Byrne
Dowdall testified that Gerard Hutch told him this at a meeting in a park in Whitehall in Dublin three days after the murder.His defence counsel is cross examining the former Sinn Féin councillor for a seventh day today.
Senior counsel Brendan Grehan put it to Dowdall that when he says Hutch"confessed to you, specifically in the park, that's a lie."Extracts from the bugged garda recordings of the two men's conversations on 7 March 2016 when they drove to and from Northern Ireland are being played to Dowdall and he is being asked to comment on them.
At one point Dowdall said to Hutch on that recording:"Can you remember that meeting with Kevin, you never admitted that was you at the Regency, did you not?""Well we did obviously if you're giving them the bleeding yokes."Dowdall said today that this conversation refers to a meeting Dowdall and Hutch had with dissident republicans three weeks earlier on 20 February.
He says Hutch is confirming that the dissidents knew he had been involved in the murder of David Byrne and was giving them the three guns used as a present. Dowdall says the name Kevin refers to Kevin 'Tyrone' O'Neill, a senior dissident republican whom he says Hutch spoke about the guns when he left the room.Rowan was jailed for seven and a half years.The court also heard the recording of Dowdall and Hutch talking about possible"peace talks" with the Kinahans to end the feud, during which Hutch refers to Thomas 'Bomber' Kavanagh and David Byrne's father James 'Jemmy' Byrne.
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