" Four charged with sending cash to the USA for weapons"

Four people allegedly sent more than £60,000 to a gun-smuggling ring in the USA, a court was told yesterday.

Belfast Crown Court heard that security staff at Coventry Airport uncovered guns, magazines and bullets when they x-rayed 19 "seem­ingly innocuous packages" that had been sent to the Republic from Florida in July, 1999.

Prosecuting QC David Hunter told Diplock trial judge Mr Justice Girvan that, following investiga­tions in the US, four people were arrested and convicted of gun-smuggling - Conor Claxton, 32, Martin Mullan, 35, Anthony Smyth, 48, and Siobhan Browne, 35.

He said that a fifth person whom the US authorities wanted to arrest, Michael Brogan, had yet to be caught.

The lawyer said that the initial investigation resulted in inquiries being made into the financial affairs of Brogan and Mullan in the US and Northern Ireland, as well as those of the two men and two women who are now on trial for allegedly send­ing them the money.

Denying a charge of facilitating the control of terrorist funds are Brogan's 30-year-old sister, Maria, from McCamphill Park, Dunloy, Co Antrim; Mullen's 29-year-old partner, Patricia O'Kane, from Hillside Avenue, Dunloy; Conor Claxton's brother, Lawrence, 41, from Kilmore Close, Belfast; and 29-year-old Sean Burns, from Clonard Place, Belfast.

Mr Hunter said it was the Crown case against each accused that they "provided money for use by persons in the USA in connection with the purchase of firearms and firearm equipment which were to be sent.

for use in the commission of acts of terrorism".

He said that in total, the author­ities in Coventry and in the US uncovered 90 guns, 82 magazines for use with AK47 assault rifles and 1,066 assorted bullets, adding that the arsenal "were of types comm­only used in Northern Ireland by the Provisional IRA in the course of their perpetration of acts of terrorism".

The lawyer claimed that, between January and July, 1999, Maria Brogan sent her brother £37,547, O'Kane lodged £8,860 into Mullen's bank account in Northern Ireland,

Claxton sent £10,000 to Smyth and Burns sent Conor Claxton $9,290.

Mr Hunter said that, although Brogan and O'Kane did not answer any questions during police inter­views, Claxton claimed he had been summoned to the First Trust Bank in Andersonstown by the manager to sign two foreign draft cheques which he assumed were for his brother, while Burns claimed the money he sent was the profits from the sale of a mobile phone business Claxton had owned.