Thomas Murphy (Irish republican)

Thomas "Slab" Murphy (Irish: Tomás Mac Murchaidh: born 26 August 1949^[1]) is an Irish republican and convicted tax evader, believed to be a former Chief of Staff of the Provisional Irish Republican Army.^[2] His farm straddles County Armagh and County Louth, the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.^[3] In December 2015, Murphy was found guilty on nine counts of tax evasion following a lengthy investigation by the Criminal Assets Bureau.^[4] In February 2016, Murphy was jailed and sentenced to 18 months in prison.^[5]

IRA involvement

Murphy was allegedly involved with the South Armagh Brigade of the IRA before being elected Chief of Staff by the IRA Army Council.^[6] Toby Harnden (ex-correspondent for the Daily Telegraph) named him as planning the Warrenpoint ambush of 1979, in which 18 British soldiers were killed, and he was also allegedly implicated in the Mullaghmore bombing the same day, which killed four people (including two children and Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma). Murphy was involved in smuggling in huge stockpiles of weapons from Libya in the 1980s^[7] and was part of the army council that decided to end its first ceasefire with the London Canary Wharf Docklands bomb in 1996 that killed two men.^[8]

Accused by the Sunday Times of directing an IRA bombing campaign in Britain, in 1987 Murphy unsuccessfully sued the paper for libel in Dublin.^[9] The original verdict was overturned by the court of appeal because of omissions in the judge's summing up and there was a retrial which he also lost. At the retrial, both Sean O'Callaghan and Eamon Collins, former members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, testified against him, as did members of the Gardaí, Irish customs officials, British Army and local TD Brendan McGahon. Collins, who also had written a book about his experiences, Killing Rage, was beaten and killed by having a spike driven through his face, near his home in Newry eight months later. In 1998, a Dublin court dismissed Murphy's case after a high-profile trial, during which Murphy stated that he had: "Never been a member of the IRA, no way" and claimed not to know where the Maze prison was.^[9]

The jury ruled, however, that he was an IRA commander and a smuggler.^[8][10] The Sunday Times subsequently published statements given by Adrian Hopkins, the skipper who ferried weapons from Libya to the IRA, to the French authorities who intercepted the fifth and final Eksund shipment. Hopkins detailed how Murphy met a named Libyan agent in Greece, paid for the weapons to be imported, and helped unload them when they arrived in Ireland. According to A Secret History of the IRA by Ed Moloney, Murphy has been the IRA Army Council's Chief of Staff since 1997. Toby Harnden's Bandit Country: the IRA and South Armagh also details Murphy's IRA involvement.^[9]

On 20 September 2016 the BBC's Spotlight aired a programme in which a British spy who had infiltrated the IRA claimed that Murphy had demanded the killing of Denis Donaldson in 2006 who was an IRA member and British informer in order to maintain discipline. The BBC said it had tried to contact Murphy but had received no reply, he has yet to respond to the allegation.^[11] On 23 September the solicitor of the Donaldson family said that the allegation was "absolute nonsense" he also said that “It does not marry in any way with the lines of inquiry that have been progressed by the Garda or by the police ombudsman.”^[12]

Smuggling allegations and denials

In October 2005, officers of the British Assets Recovery Agency and the Irish Criminal Assets Bureau carried out raids on a number of businesses in Manchester and Dundalk.^[13] It was extensively reported in the media that the investigation was aimed at damaging the suspected multimillion-pound empire of Murphy, who according to the BBC's Underworld Rich List, has accumulated up to £40 million through smuggling oil, cigarettes, grain and pigs; as well as through silent or partial ownership in legitimate businesses and in property.^[14]

A large, purpose-built underground torture chamber that Gardaí believe the IRA used to interrogate and torture their victims was discovered close to Murphy's home.^[15][16]

In his first-ever press release, issued on 12 October 2005, Murphy denied he owned any property and denied that he had any links with co-accused Cheshire businessman Dermot Craven (Frank Murphy, Thomas' brother, was a client of Cravens). Thomas Murphy stated:

I have been a republican all my life and fully support the peace process. I will continue to play whatever role I can, to see it work.

Furthermore, Murphy claimed that he had to sell property to cover his legal fees after his failed libel case against the Sunday Times and that he made a living from farming. He went on to say:

There is absolutely no foundation to the allegations about me which have been carried in the media for some time, and repeated at length over the past week, I want to categorically state, for the record, that all of these allegations are totally untrue."^[17]

On 9 March 2006 police, soldiers and customs officials from both sides of the Irish border launched a large dawn raid on his house and several other buildings in the border region. Three persons were arrested by the Gardaí, but were released three days after. A fleet of tankers, computers, documents, two shotguns, over 30,000 cigarettes and the equivalent of 800,000 euros in sterling bank notes, euro bank notes and cheques were seized. Four laundering facilities attached to a major network of storage tanks, some of which were underground, were also found.^[18] The Irish Criminal Assets Bureau later obtained seizure orders to take possession of euro cash and cheques and sterling cash and cheques, together worth around one million Euros.^[19]

One of three brothers, Murphy is a lifelong bachelor who lives on the Louth side of his farm.^[3]

Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams made a public statement in support of Murphy following the March 2006 raids. Under political and media pressure over allegations of the IRA's continued presence in South Armagh, Adams said:

Tom Murphy is not a criminal. He's a good republican and I read his statement after the Manchester raids and I believe what he says and also and very importantly he is a key supporter of Sinn Féin's peace strategy and has been for a very long time.^[20]

He also said:

I want to deal with what is an effort to portray Tom Murphy as a criminal, as a bandit, as a gang boss, as someone who is exploiting the republican struggle for his own ends, as a multimillionaire. There is no evidence to support any of that.^[21]

And also:

He's a good republican ... Tom Murphy was one of the supporters of this peace process.^[22]

Commenting in Armagh on Murphy's imprisonment for tax fraud, Arlene Foster, First Minister of Northern Ireland said:

Whilst some people refer to Murphy as a 'good republican' the people of this area know him to be a criminal'.^[23]

Assets seizure and settlement

Murphy was arrested in Dundalk, County Louth on 7 November 2007 by detectives from the Criminal Assets Bureau, on charges relating to alleged revenue offences. The following day, he was charged with tax evasion under the Tax Consolidation Act.^[24][25] Murphy was later released on his own bail of €20,000 with an independent surety of €50,000.

On 17 October 2008, in an agreed legal settlement, Murphy and his brothers paid over £1 million in assets and cash to the authorities in Britain and the Republic, in settlement of a global crime and fraud investigation, relating to proceeds of crime associated with smuggling and money laundering. After an investigation involving the Irish Criminal Assets Bureau and the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency, over 625,000 euros (£487, 000) in cash and cheques was confiscated by the Republic's courts, while nine properties in northwest England worth £445,000 were confiscated by British courts.^[2] Murphy was still fighting a claim in the Republic's courts for tax evasion, relating to non-completion of tax returns for eight years from 1996.

On 26 April 2010, he was further remanded on bail.^[26]

In 2011, there were claims that Thomas Murphy had become disillusioned with the Northern Ireland peace process and that he had fallen out with Sinn Féin. However, there is no evidence to support he is sympathetic to any dissident republican groups. In March 2013, Gardaí and PSNI, along with members of the Irish Customs Authority and HMRC, raided Murphy's farm on the Louth-Armagh border. There was a report, that two hours prior to raid fire was seen coming from Murphy's yard, at around 4am, by the Sunday World.^[27] There were serious concerns within the Garda and PSNI that a mole may have tipped off Murphy about the raid hours prior to it, as "Laptops, computer disks and a large amount of documentation had been destroyed in the fires." As a result, an internal Garda investigation took place.^[28]

Tax evasion conviction

On 17 December 2015, Murphy was found guilty on nine charges of tax evasion by a 3-judge, non-jury Special Criminal Court trial sitting in Dublin, lasting nine weeks. He was tried under anti-terrorist legislation due to the belief by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) that there would not be a fair trial because of the potential of the intimidation of prosecution witnesses, jurors and the security surrounding the trial (in 1999, a man who testified against Murphy in court was bludgeoned to death after the trial).^[29]

Murphy was found guilty on all charges of failing to furnish tax returns on his income as a "cattle farmer" between 1996 and 2004. He was prosecuted on foot of a 14 year long CAB investigation, which during a raid of his property uncovered bags with over €250,000 and over £111,000 sterling in cash, along with documents, diaries and ledgers.^[30] He was remanded on bail until early 2016 for sentencing.

On 26 February 2016, Murphy was sentenced to 18 months in prison. None of the jail term was suspended. Following sentencing he was immediately transferred from court to Ireland's highest security prison, Portlaoise Prison, reserved for terrorists, dissident republicans and serious gangland criminals under a heavily-armed Garda and Irish Army escort due to security concerns.^[5]

In November 2016 an appeal to the decision was made, his lawyer John Kearney claimed the tax he was found guilty of not paying was paid by his brother, Patrick.^[31]

References

External links

• "Is 'Slab' Murphy's bloody reign drawing to an end?" Guardian report on the raid of Murphy's farm, as well as brief background on the allegations surrounding Murphy
• "CAB probes Slab Murphy’s UK property portfolio" A Times Online report about the Criminal Asset Bureau's investigation of a property folio belonging to Thomas 'Slab' Murphy