FORMER ADDICT SAYS MAN WAS KILLED FOR NO REASON

A former heroin addict told the Special Criminal Court yesterday that he
wanted to see the people who killed his friend, Mr Josie Dwyer, locked up.

Mr Alan Byrne said that Mr Dwyer had been kicked to death for no reason. He
has told the court that he was a heroin addict and lived in the Basin Street
flats in Dublin near Mr Dwyer, who was also a heroin addict.

Cross-examined by Mr John McCrudden QC, Mr Byrne said: "I want to see
justice being done. I want to see the people who actually killed him being
locked up. I am telling the truth. I am the only person who was there who
has no reason to tell lies."

The court also yesterday granted leave to defence lawyers to subpoena RTE
for a tape of a 1996 television documentary in which Mr Byrne was
interviewed about the assault.

Mr Byrne denied a suggestion by Mr McCrudden that he had exaggerated or
sensationalised his account of the assault on himself and Mr Dwyer in 1996
in Dublin's south inner city.

He said that one of three men accused of Mr Dwyer's manslaughter had walked
up to him and punched him in the jaw during a confrontation in Fatima
Mansions.

Mr George Bermingham SC, prosecuting, has told the court that Mr Dwyer and
Mr Byrne were attacked in "an assault of some ferocity that involved
punches, kicks and the use of weapons" by a group of men after an anti-drugs
meeting in Dolphin's Barn.

Mr Dwyer, a heroin addict who was HIV positive, died from a ruptured spleen
shortly after the assault. It was the second day of the trial of three
Dublin men - Mr Bernard Dempsey (41), of Marrowbone Flats, Mr Stephen Carney
(25), of Dolphin House, Rialto, and Mr Ronald Byrne (40), of Cremona Road,
Ballyfermot - who have pleaded not guilty to the manslaughter of Mr Dwyer
(41) at Basin Lane, Dublin, on May 14th, 1996. They also deny assaulting Mr
Dwyer's companion, Mr Byrne (26), causing him actual bodily harm, and
committing violent disorder in Dublin on the same date.

Mr Byrne told Mr McCrudden, for Ronald Byrne, that when he and Josie Dwyer
were walking through Fatima Mansions they were confronted by a group of men,
including the accused, Ronald Byrne. Ronald Byrne walked straight up to him
and punched him.

"I thought he was going to give me a lecture. He just walked straight up to
me and smack. It was a very hard blow right to the jaw that knocked me clean
off my feet," he said.

The witness said that the crowd then started kicking and stamping on him
before he scrambled to his feet and got away.

He agreed with Mr McCrudden that Mr Ronald Byrne was a leader of the
Concerned Parents Against Drugs group in Dolphin's Barn but he denied that
was the reason he had identified him to gardai.

The trial resumes next Tuesday.