On 26 June 1996, a motorbike pulled up beside the car of journalist Veronica Guerin and fired six bullets into the car. Guerin was hit by all six bullets.
Brian Meehan from Crumlin was jailed for life following a 31-day trial in the Special Criminal Court three years later. The court found him responsible for driving the motorbike.
Now Meehan claims new evidence which emerged during the 2001 trial of notorious criminal John Gilligan, proves his conviction was a miscarriage of justice. Meehan claims details about witnesses to the murder have arisen that could be crucial to his defense. The evidence comes in the form of a transcript which Meehan claims has been retrieved “from the bowels of the Four Courts”.
Last June, counsel for the Director of Public Prosecutions, Paul Anthony McDermott, told the court it had been “two decades since Veronica Guerin was murdered” and there was a lot of material to go through.
There was a “debate” between the parties as to the meaning of new evidence and whether one could rely on old transcripts.
Guerin’s murder was an event, which led to the formation of the Criminal Assets Bureau. Guerin was a crime journalist for the Sunday Independent. She used training in accounting to trace the proceeds of illegal activity, she used street names or pseudonyms for underworld figures to avoid Irish libel laws.
