The movements of a black BMW Jeep from north Co Dublin to Dublin city centre on the day of the murder of David Byrne more than six years ago were shown on CCTV at the Special Criminal Court this afternoon.
The prosecution claims the jeep is linked to Jason Bonney from Drumnigh Wood in Portmarnock, who denies helping a criminal gang to commit the murder.
His defence counsel, John Fitzgerald, says it is challenging the identification evidence and says it intends to rely on an alibi.
Senior Counsel Sean Gillane said today that it is the State’s case that the man getting into the jeep is Mr Bonney, but this is being challenged by the defence.
CCTV footage shows the jeep driving from Portmarnock to the Hole-in-the-Wall, where a man gets out with a canister in his hand before returning without it.
The BMW X5 is also seen driving through Fairview on to Amiens Street in Dublin, before returning to Portmarnock on the day of the murder.
Around 40 minutes later at 1.20pm, a man is seen leaving a house at Drumnigh Wood with a bag in his hand, before getting into the jeep and reversing out.
One of the gunmen, Kevin Murray, the dissident republican known as ‘Flat Cap’, was also captured on CCTV in Dublin city centre earlier on the day of the murder.
A PSNI officer from Strabane testified this morning that he had identified a man with a flat cap who was photographed carrying a pistol in his right hand as Mr Murray.
He said he had last spoken to him in April 2016 at his father’s address in Strabane.
Earlier, the trial also heard that gardaí found three AK-47 assault rifles after stopping a car near Slane in Co Meath just over a month after the shooting.
A number of gardaí from the Special Detective Unit gave evidence this morning of carrying out an intervention on the evening of 9 March 2016 outside Slane.
They stopped a grey Opel Insignia car with a Donegal registration and discovered three AK-47 assault rifles, along with loaded magazines and ammunition in the boot of the car.
The driver, Shane Rowan, was arrested and the car, firearms and ammunition were forensically examined.
The court has already heard in the prosecution’s opening statement that the guns found in Slane were later matched to cartridges recovered from the Regency Hotel.
Rowan was jailed for seven-and-a-half years in July 2016 for possession of assault rifles and ammunition.
He was also sentenced to a concurrent sentence of four years in prison for IRA membership.
Gerard Hutch, the man known as ‘The Monk’, 59, from the Paddocks in Clontarf in Dublin, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of David Byrne at the hotel on 5 February, 2016.
Two other men, 50-year-old Jason Bonney and 59-year-old Paul Murphy from Cabra Road have also pleaded not guilty to helping a criminal gang commit the murder by providing it with access to motor vehicles.
The trial continues tomorrow.
Byrne murder trial shown footage of Jeep’s movements
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