KILLING AROSE FROM ECSTASY DEAL THAT WENT AWRY

A jury trying a Dublin man who denies the murder of another man in 1996 was
told yesterday that the accused either pulled the trigger himself or ordered
the man to be shot because he blamed him for a "drug deal gone awry".

On the opening day of the trial of Mr Joseph Delaney (53), of Palmerstown
Park, Palmerstown, Dublin, the prosecution counsel, Mr Patrick Gageby SC,
told the Central Criminal Court jury the case was "about the cost of drugs".

It would give "an unparalleled view" into the criminal underworld of Dublin,
he said.

When he was arraigned on Monday April 20th, Mr Delaney pleaded not guilty to
the murder with his son, Scott Delaney, of Mark Dwyer (23), on or about
December 14th, 1996. The court heard that Scott Delaney "has already been
dealt with according to law".

Mr Delaney also pleaded not guilty to a second count that on December 14th,
1996, at Foster Terrace, Ballybough, Dublin, he falsely imprisoned Mark
Dwyer. Opening the case for the prosecution, Mr Gageby told the jury that
this case would show that behind what were to some people seemingly
innocuous drugs, there lay "a sordid world based on criminality and
violence".

The prosecution case was that in the early hours of December 14th, 1996,
Mark Dwyer was "tied up like a chicken" and "bundled out of his flat". A
couple of hours later, having been beaten soundly, a shotgun was put to his
head, its trigger pulled and he died instantly.

"Joe Delaney either administered the shot that terminated Mark Dwyer's
existence or ordered it to be done," Mr Gageby said. In any event, "he was
present for it".

The prosecution claimed the background to the case was that Mr Delaney had
decided to import 40,000 ecstasy tablets.

His son, Scott Delaney, and Mark Dwyer travelled to the Continent in October
1996 to purchase the drugs. Then, the prosecutor said, something appeared to
have gone wrong with the delivery of those drugs to Mr Delaney or his
"runners or couriers".

Mr Delaney realised that someone had "skipped with his drugs". An
investigation was launched and in late November or early December "the
finger of suspicion began to point at Mark Dwyer".

Mr Dwyer himself had a reputation for "being capable of considerable
personal violence" and for "killing people in cold blood". So Mr Delaney
organised that he be seized and interrogated by three men wearing
balaclavas.

Following his abduction from a house in Foster Terrace, Bally-bough, the
prosecution claimed Mr Dwyer was taken to La Rochelle, a house occupied by
Mr Delaney in Naas, Co Kildare, and there "very badly beaten" in an attempt
to find out where the ecstasy tablets were.

When the beating "bore no fruit", the decision was taken to kill him, and he
was taken outside and shot. His body was left at Scribblestown Lane, a
cul-de-sac between Castleknock and Finglas, where it was found in a field,
still bound and hooded.

Mr Gageby said Scott Delaney was left with the body. This was done, the
prosecution contended, "to point the finger of suspicion elsewhere, perhaps
to vigilantes".

Ms Jennifer Byrne (18) said she had been living with Mark Dwyer at Foster
Terrace. She agreed with Mr Blaise O'Carroll SC, defending, that Mark Dwyer
had wanted to keep his new address a secret. Under cross-examination, Ms
Byrne said that before his abduction she had heard Mark Dwyer talk of a
"rip-off". She had also heard him and others talking about P.J. Judge, whose
photograph was in the paper because he had been found dead. On the night of
the abduction, she and Mark Dwyer were in their flat with two of her women
friends and two men, Mr Karl "Yorkie" Dunne and Scott Delaney. Scott Delaney
was "very nervy, very edgy", which was out of character. He had taken
cocaine out of his pocket and though Mark Dwyer didn't want to take it,
Scott had pressurised him into doing so. At one stage, when Dwyer asked what
was worrying him, Scott Delaney said "the vigilantes are after me" or
something to that effect.

Later that night, the flat door was knocked in and three men with balaclavas
and black jackets burst in. One, carrying a sawn-off shotgun, stood at the
door, while the other two "threw Mark on the floor", saying: "You were a
silly boy. You fucked up . . ."

The men took a wire out of the back of the television and video and tied Mr
Dwyer around the ankles and wrists. When they first came in they had
"Northern Ireland accents" but later these changed to Dublin accents. "One
of them sounded very inner city," the witness said.

Ms Karen Hyland told the court she was in the flat that night also. She told
Mr O'Carroll that as far as she could remember, Mark Dwyer had not been
pressurised in taking the cocaine but had "asked for a line".

The trial continues today before Mr Justice Barr and the jury.