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BOWDEN TELLS OF HIDING IEP40,000 DRUGS CASH

Charles Bowden told the Special Criminal Court yesterday that he had loaded
the gun used to murder the journalist Veronica Guerin.

Bowden, who is under the Witness Protection Programme, admitted under
cross-examination by defence counsel, Mr Patrick MacEntee SC, that he had
been "an accessory" in Ms Guerin's murder.

However, he said he had not realised the gun he had loaded with six bullets
was to be used to kill the journalist. "I believed she was going to be
threatened again, possibly shot at."

Bowden is serving a six-year jail sentence for drugs and firearms offences
and has been granted immunity from prosecution for the Guerin murder.

He identified Mr Paul "Hippo" Ward (34) as a member of a gang which
distributed cannabis in Dublin and said that Ms Guerin had been killed
because she "pissed off" the leader of the gang responsible for importing
the drugs.

Bowden was giving evidence in the trial of Mr Ward, of Crumlin, Dublin,
with an address at Walkinstown Road, Dublin, who has pleaded not guilty to
the murder of Ms Guerin at the Naas Road, Clondalkin, Co Dublin, on June
26th, 1996.

Cross-examined by Mr MacEntee, Bowden said that in August or September 1994
he had approached a man he had known and asked him for work. He was given
money to buy a car. Bowden said he, Mr Ward and two other members of the
gang drove to a hotel in Co Kildare, where he was introduced to a man who
would deliver cannabis to the hotel car-park. His job was to transfer the
cannabis to his car, drive to Dublin and count the drugs.

Initially, he used his flat in Ballymun but then had rented three lock-up
premises in succession, the last one at Greenmount Industrial Estate in
Harold's Cross.

He said initially he was paid IEP500 a week and collected 20, 30 or 40
kilos of cannabis, but the consignments got bigger and his payments
increased. Bowden agreed with Mr MacEntee that he began to have a
substantial income and spent the money on clothes and drink.

Asked if he had kept the money under his mattress, Bowden replied: "At the
bottom of the washing basket in the bathroom, to be honest."

He said he had kept up to IEP40,000 in the laundry basket and that he had
used the money from his drug dealing to buy a hairdressing business in
Moore Street in 1995.

Bowden said he saved money, usually in bundles of IEP1,000, and kept it in
a "friend of a friend's house". He kept it in the laundry basket in the
bathroom when he lived in the Ballymun flat and had brought the money in
the basket with him when he moved to a three-bedroom house at The Paddocks,
on the Navan Road.

Bowden told Mr MacEntee he got a IEP69,000 mortgage for the house after his
accountant had provided projected earnings for the hairdressing business.

He told Mr MacEntee he had to change the way he was keeping his money as
the laundry basket was filling up and he was afraid of being robbed. He
arranged for a safe to be sunk in his brother Michael's shed.

"I think he presumed it was from some form of criminal activity, but it
wasn't something we talked about."

He said he kept IEP3,000 to IEP4,000 in the safe and had transferred
IEP100,000 to a flat in Mespil Road. He was making about IEP5,000 a week
and the most he earned in any one week would be IEP6,500 to IEP7,000.

"Do you accept that you gloated as the sums went up?" Mr MacEntee asked.

"Absolutely, yes," he replied.

Questioned about how he disposed of an estimated income of IEP300,000 over
18 months, Bowden said the real figure would be IEP150,000 to IEP200,000.
He had developed a cocaine habit and admitted that he spent IEP400 a week
on cocaine.

He said he had decided to move IEP100,000 from his house to a flat in
Mespil Road because he was under pressure. "The particular pressure was
that the police team hunting for the murderers of Veronica Guerin were
closing in on all of us." He had no plans to run away.

Bowden said he planned to go to London with a woman for a shopping trip but
was arrested before he got to the airport. Det Sgt Fergus Traynor had
called to his house and had left a message for him to contact the Garda.

"I knew it was to do with the murder of Veronica Guerin or my association
with drug dealing. It could only possibly be one of those two things. I was
an accessory."

Asked if he had put the bullets in the gun used to kill Ms Guerin, he
replied: "Yes. I had."

"And you had carried on drug dealing as if nothing had happened?

"Yes."

He denied that he had arranged to go to London to talk to people who could
arrange to get money out of the country. He said newspaper reports about
the Guerin investigation indicated that gardai knew who they were looking
for. He knew gardai were looking for the gang leader and admitted he knew
the gang leader and had met him three times.

"It was blatantly obvious to me that gardai were on to me and, having this
money in the house, I had to get rid of it."

He said he did not think the Garda knew he was a member of the drugs gang.
The gang had discussed ways of dealing with the large amounts of money it
was making.

He said he was thinking about getting the money into a bank account in the
Isle of Man. "I had to get away, I was stressed. I wanted to get away, just
running away from this problem," he said about his planned weekend in London.

He admitted he had planned to take the woman who was a hairdresser with him
for a shopping weekend to impress her but denied that he was having an
affair with her or that he had had sexual intercourse with her. However, he
did admit he was planning "a weekend of infidelity".

The trial continues.

Checked-by: Pat Dolan