DUBLINER GUILTY IN REPORTER'S SLAYING

Courts: A drug dealer is sentenced to life for his role in the murder of a
journalist who covered crime.

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

The man, Paul Ward, 34, denied helping to kill Guerin but admitted that he
knew drug dealers who planned to do it. He acknowledged during the trial
that he also dealt in drugs.

Ward 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 Criminal Court,
established out of fear that criminals and terrorists could intimidate
jurors.

Guerin, 37, was shot five times in the chest 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 .357 Magnum pistol. Ward was accused of disposing of
the gun and the motorcycle. He was the first of several suspects to be tried
in the case.

The men accused of the actual shooting and of driving the motorcycle have
been arrested and face trials in the spring. Another suspect, the head of
the drug gang, is in England fighting an extradition order. The names of the
three are widely known; though the court has forbidden journalists to make
them public, some have ignored the order.

Ward's girlfriend, Vanessa Meehan, is the sister of one of the men in jail,
Brian Meehan, according to police, who have also identified the suspected
gunman as Eugene Holland.

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

The court decision, read Friday morning by Justice Robert Barr, first
attacked as unproven the police assertions that Ward had confessed to
getting rid of the gun and motorcycle. The judges said police had violated
his rights by putting unjust psychological pressure on him, and that there
was evidence they had beat him around the neck.

Police acknowledged that they had failed to videotape or record any
confession, and said they had lost the notes of such a confession.

With Guerin's husband, Graham Turley, and other family members sitting in
the small courtroom during the two-hour presentation of the verdict, Barr
initially seemed on the verge of acquitting Ward.

But he went on to say that Bowden, though a liar and criminal, now in prison
on a six-year drug and weapons sentence, should be believed in his testimony
on Ward's involvement. He said Bowden was trying "to extricate himself when
cornered by the police," but that his testimony was not influenced by an
offer of immunity from prosecution in the killing and placement in the
witness protection program, which he will enter when he finishes his drug
sentence.

"He was at high risk of being convicted of the murder and his bargaining
position would have been reduced to zero," the justice continued. Asking
rhetorically if there was any reason to believe Bowden was lying about Ward,
Barr said, "The court can find nothing in evidence that raises such
suspicion."

Legal experts here had said such uncorroborated allegations rarely lead to
convictions.

There was no immediate word on whether Ward would appeal the decision.

Checked-by: Don Beck