An American spy who is the key witness against an alleged dissident Irish Republican Army commander completed 15 days of unprecedented testimony Thursday in which he said the defendant wanted to attack Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government. David Rupert, a 6-foot-6 American trucker whom the FBI recruited in 1994 to infiltrate extremist Irish circles by posing as a smuggler, is the first American spy featured in an Irish terrorism trial. The defendant, Michael McKevitt, 53, the alleged founder of the Real IRA group, is being tried for “directing terrorism” and could receive a life sentence if convicted. So far, the trial has focused on the 51-year-old Rupert, the central accuser. At the end of 11 days of cross-examination, McKevitt’s attorney, Hugh Hartnett, accused Rupert of being a fantasist who never met McKevitt. The accused sat just yards behind him, flanked by two prison guards in Dublin’s no-jury Special Criminal Court. Full Story
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