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Court of Appeal dismisses appeal against conviction for membership of an unlawful organisation, on the grounds, inter alia, that: (a) the defence had not been disadvantaged in any way by the fact that anonymity was afforded to certain witnesses and the fairness of the trial was not affected; (b) there was no breach of the statutory provisions relating to surveillance where the photographs taken were of a place to which the public had access, being the balcony of a flat complex, and it was not necessary that the place should have been somewhere to which the public had access as of right; and (c) the Judges' Rules had no application to an impugned conversation between the appellant and a detective garda.
Appeal against conviction for membership of an unlawful organisation - prosecution case reliant on evidence of FBI agent whose task it was to monitor the Dark Web - person identifying as 'Meat Cleaver' attempted to order explosive - FBI agent made contact with gardaí, who arranged for a controlled delivery of inert explosives - package signed for on balcony of flat complex by man now known to be the appellant - delivery under surveillance by members of the National Surveillance Unit of An Garda Síochána - number of photographs taken of the transaction - appellant arrested later in the day and did not answer any questions put to him - opinion/belief evidence a chief superintendent that appellant was a member of an unlawful organisation styling itself the IRA was admitted at trial - six witnesses allowed to give evidence without revealing names to the defence and while the public were excluded from the courtroom - invocation of s. 2 of the Offences Against the State (Amendment) Act 1998 - whether FBI agent should have been allowed to give evidence by way of video link or at all - whether arrest was unlawful - whether witnesses such as the FBI agent and the relevant member of the National Surveillance Unit ought to have been allowed to give evidence without revealing their names to the defence - whether photographing of the transaction involving the inert explosive substances was contrary to the provisions of the Criminal Justice (Surveillance) Act 2009 - whether fact that conversation that garda had with appellant was not written down and read over to the appellant was a breach of the Judges’ Rules.
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