DUBLIN DRUG DEALER IS CONVICTED OF PROMINENT JOURNALIST'S MURDER

DUBLIN---A Dublin drug dealer was convicted by a three-judge panel on
Friday of the 1996 murder of Veronica Guerin, a prominent journalist known
for her aggressive reporting on Dublin criminals.

Paul Ward, 34, who denied helping to kill Ms. Guerin but admitted that he
knew drug dealers who planned to do it, was sentenced to life in prison.
Normally, there is no parole before 14 years.

There was no jury because the case was tried in the Special Crimi{lal
Court, established out of fear that criminals, and paramilitary terrorists,
could intimidate jurors.

Ms. Guerin, 37, was shot five times in the chest on June 26, 1996, as she
sat in her car at a traffic light on the outskirts of Dublin. The killers
rode a motorcycle and used a Magnurn .357 pistol.

Mr. Ward was accused, of disposing of the gun and the motorcycle. His trial
was the first of several men suspected by the police of having been
involved. The alleged shooter and motorcycle driver have been arrested and
face trials in the spring. A third man, the reported head of the drug gang,
is in England fighting an extradition order. The names of the thrce are
videly known, but the court has forbidden reporters to make them public.
Some have'ignored the order.

Mr. Ward's girlfriend, Vanessa Meehan, is the sister of one of the men in
jail in the case who drove the motorcycle, according to th82 police. The
shooter, they say, was a professional killer.

The chief government witness against Mr. Ward was a fellow-drug dealer,
Charles Bowden, who testified that he and Mr. Ward made about $500,000 each
selling cannabis in a two-year period. Mr. Bowden, who was placed in a
witness protection program, said Mr. Ward was intimately involved with the
planning and exesution of the crime.

The court decision, read for two hours on Friday morning by Justice Robert
Barr, first attacked as unproved assertions by the police. that Mr. Ward
had confessed to getting rid of the gun and motorcycle. The judge said that
the police had put unjust psychological pressure on him, and that there was
evidence they beat him around the neck. The police acknowledged that they
had failed to videotape or record the alleged confession and had lost the
notes of its details.

But the judge went on to deny that Mr. Bowden was influenced by his gaining
immunity from prosecution and placement in the witness protection program.

Ms. Guerin, who worked for the Sunday Independent newspaper to expose
organized crime, was the first European to win the international Press
Freedom Award from the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

Checked-by: Richard Lake