Wednesday, December 19, 2007
DPP requests Special Criminal Court for Murphy tax evasion charges
As Mick noted at the time on Comment is Free, Thomas Murphy has previously been named as both the UK’s richest smuggler and a former Provisional IRA Chief of Staff - a claim which led to a failed libel action by Murphy against the Sunday Times in 1998, during which case Eamon Collins testified against him. At the beginning of 1999 Eamon Collins was murdered in South Armagh. Alongside, apparently, ongoing investigations, Murphy was arrested in November this year on 9 charges of failing to file tax returns and, after an additional week’s delay, RTÉ reports today that a four-volume book of evidence was served on the defendant in Dundalk District Court.. together with a DPP request for the case to be heard in the non-jury Special Criminal Court - “Judge Brennan agreed to adjourn the case to 10 January in Dundalk to allow the defendant consider the book of evidence and the DPPs certificate.” [But is he still “a good republican”? - Ed] More Below the fold
Adds From today’s Irish Times [subs req]
The certificate from the DPP which directed that he be returned to the Special Criminal Court stated that it was because, in the DPP’s opinion, the ordinary courts were inadequate to secure the proper administration of justice and the preservation of public peace and order in relation to the trial of Mr Murphy.
Pete Baker @ 02:37 PM
slab took it down from the mast. the volunteers who carried out the operation against the ruc/psni man who tried to use children as human shields near a college in derry are good republicans. long may they roll!!
Posted by on Dec 19, 2007 @ 04:15 PM‘A good republican’ is what is good in Gerry Adams’ mind, to the rest of us he’s a right bastard.
Posted by on Dec 19, 2007 @ 04:18 PMTry to keep to the ball. And keep it civil.
Posted by on Dec 19, 2007 @ 04:31 PMre: post 1 > ohyawnyawn more like
Posted by on Dec 19, 2007 @ 05:18 PMhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3715205.stm
This list of rich “underwold” people is hilarious. “London Playboy”, “Unnamed Drug Baron”!
Posted by on Dec 19, 2007 @ 05:19 PMIreland’s Al Capone.
What’s he likely to get if convicted?
Prison? Fine? ASBO?Posted by on Dec 19, 2007 @ 06:53 PMWhatever peoples views Mr Murphy an astonishly capable bloke. In a normal world he would be running Irish railways.
Posted by on Dec 19, 2007 @ 06:53 PMThink what you will about Tom Murphy, he is one of the more interesting characters to come out of the long war. What one would not give to interview Tom and live to tell the tale.
What makes me chuckle about Murphy is he looks what he is, an old bachelor from down on the border, but behind that blank look there is a great deal going on. Whilst one does not have to be intelligent to survive in his kind of business, you have to be pretty sharp and have about you a great deal more than crass brutality as some of Murphy’s enemies claim. For brutality alone would not account for the loyalty this man adheres from others, for if it was violence alone someone would have given him up decades ago.
What strikes me about the man is that he is absolutely comfortable in his own shoes and there is nothing he needs that he has not already got, thus he makes such a dangerous foe. They will probably be singing songs about Tom Murphy long after we are all gone.
Posted by on Dec 19, 2007 @ 06:58 PMMick Hall your a sad man.Slab murphy is just a crook a thief a very brutal one twenty men beating one boy to death whose going to give him up they all go down togeather then dont act soft or foolish there are no more songs its over.
Posted by on Dec 19, 2007 @ 07:17 PMMick Hall
Your praise of this man is ill founded. First, there are the victims, such as Eamon Collins, whose families would not agree with your paean to the old bachelor. Second, there is the lawlessness unleashed on the local community and well beyond. Third, there is the pernicious and damaging influence on the political process.
These days I wonder how comfortable he is and how certain he is of the loyalty of all in his circle.
Posted by on Dec 19, 2007 @ 07:28 PM“"the ordinary courts are inadequate to secure the effective administration of justice”
Why?
Or is the OSA just being used by the DPP as a more likely method of returning a conviction?
Its a tax case, hardly likely to need witness testimony.
Posted by on Dec 19, 2007 @ 08:50 PMConfused
Nice to see every one is all convicted in your narrow wee mindAnd astonishingly with out a stick of real evidence
Posted by on Dec 19, 2007 @ 09:58 PMPoor wee steve there is really nothing i can say to you except that yous are a beaten docket but oh the heartache and harm that will be done before they all go away.
Posted by on Dec 19, 2007 @ 10:44 PMThis episode raises a couple of issues to my mind. Firstly I agree with steve (amazingly). The fact is that this individual is innocent until proven guilty. The fact is that the RoI is a democracy under the rule of law (whatever my criticisms of it) and the fact that there will be a trial shows that there is a legitimate government of the 26 counties of the Republic of Ireland and that legitimate government is not the army council of the IRA. The army council would not extend such things as a fair trial to the accused. That is just one of the raesons why we the decent people of the whole of Ireland are in the right and the IRA members are in the wrong.
Turning to Mick Hall’s post. If Thomas Murphy is the chief of staff or former chief of staff of the IRA it initially appears interesting and ironic that he looks like a country farmer. Apart form being from South Armagh rather than South Fermanagh he could pass for any one of a number of my wife’s relatives living or dead.
Of course the fact is that often apparent “criminal masterminds” are actually rather tediously normal people. They often lack great intelligence, good looks, even that much charisma. I know it invokes Godwin’s law but most of the Nazis were actually pretty tedious, uncultured and unremarkable people who were not noted for great intelligence. I am sure Mick Hall will concur that Trotsky was much more talented than Stalin yet Stalin won. Stalin was a pretty tedious and not especially cultured nor clever man.
The fact is that utter ruthlessness, being in the right place at the right time and good fortune can make pretty limited people achieve by the standards of criminality if they are willing to be unpleasant enough.
Yes if Mr. Murphy is the former or current chief of staff of the IRA he could tell many stories, They would probably be along the lines of “I shot him or her”, “I ordered him or her to kill him or her or to bomb that”, or “I told them to learn how to make a better mortar” etc., etc. Yes it might have a certain voyeuristic appeal but the most important thing would be that it would be the record of the needless and evil ending of people’s lives; people who by their living would have enriched their friends, families and indeed all our lives here in Northern Ireland just as their deaths have dimished them. People for whom (just like Mr. Murphy) Christ scorned not to die.
Posted by on Dec 19, 2007 @ 10:45 PMNew Yorker
What praise would that be, what paean? I never expressed my own opinion about Tom Murphy beyond saying he is one of the more interesting characters to come out of the long war, and only a fool would doubt this fact.
Lets look at the points I made again,
Do you really believe people in the future will not be singing songs about Tom Murphy and his ilk, if you do you have little understanding about the Irish who have a history of singing about gallant defeats/victories that often have very little connection with actual events, as we all do..
Do you really believe people who exist in a violent environment for decades do so by brute force alone, if you do you obviously have had no experience of such men, whether they be gangsters or freedom fighters.
Do you beleive Tom Murphy is not comfortable and more in his own shoes? if so by all means argue against the points I make, the fact you did not tells me all and I think you owe me an apology, as you have no idea what I think about Tom Murphy, you simply put your own prejudices on to me.
confused,
I despair sometimes as you clearly did not understand a word I wrote.Posted by on Dec 19, 2007 @ 10:49 PMturgon
You are correct in that great intelligence is not a necessity of people like Stalin etc, but in my experience these individuals who have power over other men/women often have a sharp mind not a great intellect, a mind that works quickly, they are often crafty and can read people extremely well. Most are not personally brutal although they are quite capable of being so. The reason for this is they can get other more gullible people to carry out violent acts on their behalf.
Whilst Trotsky was a great intellectual and was not personally brutal, I do not go along with his or his heirs assessment of Stalin that he was a dullard, Stalin was I suspect like Mr Murphy a very able leader of men, something Leon Trotsky, for all his great abilities was not so good at.
The measure of a great leader is to be one of the men but not of them if you get my drift and if like Trotsky you are head and shoulders intellectually above your peers, you are liable to create jealousy not loyalty.
The problem with the way the media deals with such people is they almost always portray them as ranting monsters which is silly, I was listening to a secret recording of Hitler the other day and the man was charm itself, I feel the media portray them as ranting monsters because they cannot come to terms with these monsters not be that different from the rest of us in the way they intereact.
Posted by on Dec 19, 2007 @ 11:14 PMMick Hall: “Think what you will about Tom Murphy, he is one of the more interesting characters to come out of the long war. What one would not give to interview Tom and live to tell the tale. “
Yeah… great… interesting alleged smuggling murdering thugs. Bravo.
Mick Hall: “Whilst one does not have to be intelligent to survive in his kind of business, you have to be pretty sharp and have about you a great deal more than crass brutality as some of Murphy’s enemies claim.”
Not really—Al Capone, Bugsy Siegel, Arthur Fleggenheimer, James “Whitey” Bulger… crass brutality goes a hell of a long way in the underworld.
Posted by on Dec 19, 2007 @ 11:17 PMMick
“these individuals who have power over other men/women often have a sharp mind not a great intellect, a mind that works quickly, they are often crafty and can read people extremely well. Most are not personally brutal although they are quite capable of being so. The reason for this is they can get other more gullible people to carry out violent acts on their behalf.”
Those are the key lines of yours to focus on.
Rather than any historical comparisons.. or, indeed, how the media may portray such individuals.
Posted by on Dec 19, 2007 @ 11:19 PMMick Hall,
Actually I agree entirely with that post. Often I think people want to believe that those whom they perceive as “evil” are different or “other” than them. A good example I noticed in a tabloid a few days ago was that apparently Rosemary West had a pet rodent and she was very sad when it died. This was seen as surprising. The reality is that lots of people who do utterly wicked things are very ordinary and are capable of doing nice things. Indeed I would submit we all have the capacity to do very evil things. There is of course a religious argument here but even leaving aside religion; normally good people can do utterly wicked things as one offs and indeed can become corrupted into multiple horrible acts. I would argue that it shows the Utter Depravity of the human soul but also the fact that no one is beyond the reach of Irrestible Grace. (Sorry calvinist aside).I suspect you are right and in a few generations some people from your tradition may laud Thomas Murphy as an IRA leader (whatever the truth or not of it) and some from mine may laud Lenny Murphy. It is, however, rather sad in my view. I would rather they did not but there seems to be a tradition of it here.
Posted by on Dec 19, 2007 @ 11:27 PMMick Hall,
Sorry, really I am but I am not about to lie down in the face of a bent, murdering, malicious men. Ripe out the content of this if you want but National Socialists come gansters don’t fool me.
And I am sorry for the offence, if caused, really I am.
But, efforts by the strong to dominate the weak will end. Okay.
Posted by on Dec 20, 2007 @ 12:34 AMApologies for the above Pete, Mick and Mick Hall but you should know better and perhaps I should drink less during the week.
[Done - edited moderator]
Posted by on Dec 20, 2007 @ 12:46 AM“The reality is that lots of people who do utterly wicked things are very ordinary and are capable of doing nice things.”
Actually, the reality is that they are profoundly abnormal - and should never be confused with normal people. Antisocial personality disorder ("A pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others.” - American Psychiatric Association) affects about 3% of males and 1% of females, so they are common enough in society to form groups that are destructive to society while being advantageous to themselves (organised crime syndicates, murder gangs, fascist movements, etc). A sociopath is devoid of conscience and devoid of empathy. Because they lack the emotions to relate to others (who are no more than cardboard cut-outs to them), they have to labour hard at such interaction in order to be seen as normal. That is why they often appear charming: they’re mastered the art of people management through necessity. Central to that is the need to manipulate through deceit or intimidation. As Mick said, they’re expert people-readers. Someone like Murphy would be either a sociopath or a psychopath with the main difference being that the sociopath is a product of his experience and the psychopath is born that way. APD disorder is the cause of all the trouble in society (one study puts the percentage of prisoners who meet the diagnostic requirement for APD at between 80 to 85 percent).
Posted by on Dec 20, 2007 @ 01:42 AMMick Hall
What I object to is contributing to the myth making you forecast regarding this individual. You can have your private opinions about such people, but on the public record making them sound like a cuddly old uncle is wrong. If you spoke of spikes through heads, torture chambers, mangled bones and the like you would be contributing to a more truthful myth than the fairy tale of the old bachelor farmer who smuggled a few litres of petrol in his old banger of a car. Modern myths are not spontaneous creations. In this case Jack The Ripper is more on the mark than a teddy bear with a cap.
In the midst of the Garda squeezing, I doubt he’s very comfortable. It just takes one to feel the heat and squeal and the whole house collapses. And it’s not as easy to hop a jet to Bulgaria when on bail.
Posted by on Dec 20, 2007 @ 01:53 AMBut, efforts by the strong to dominate the weak will end. Okay.
Sorry DC but the strong always dominate the weak, they do it with out effort or even understanding. perhaps the biggest difference between Stalin and Hitler was the ability to turn it on and off as the situation required. and the ability to do it with subtle dominance that is so under the radar that not a blip is ever raised.
As a manager I expierement with the subtle interplay among my employees. I totally lack the charm of a true hitler but I have learned to turn the domination on and off as required, though I dont always get it right.
Posted by on Dec 20, 2007 @ 03:05 AMA bunch of religious nutters from a couple of provincial counties on a remote off-shore island manage to drag out the British withdrawal from that island by inflicting 80 years of oppression and Emergency Laws and we have this nonsense about the powers of Good and Evil and popular psychology straight out of the pages of Readers Digest.
The unionists got away with it for so long because they were useful to the British Conservative Party. It had nothing to do with their vicious hypocrisy or their gift for playing the Pharisee.
As for South Armagh? Like every large council estate or other semi-independent area there are local hardmen. South Armagh has never had good government nor acceptable policing so the figures there are more powerful and have more popular support but in essence it’s still the same, and if you’re a democratic like me you believe that local people will sort it out if they are given the chance.
Since the Harvard experiments we all know what we’re capable of. Special Branch jumping on the legs of children until they snapped like twigs were’t monsters unfortunately and the guys from South Armagh I went to school with are probably no less and no more capable of violence than they were.
Posted by on Dec 20, 2007 @ 09:58 AM
