Audio and video evidence ‘proof trio were involved in IRA terrorism’

Colin Duffy is one of three men facing terrorism charges

Three men allegedly secretly recorded discussing a failed attempt to kill police as well as other terrorist activities have gone on trial in Belfast.

They are accused of offences including attempted murder, preparing and directing terrorism and IRA membership in December 2013.

A prosecution lawyer told Crown Court judge, Mr Justice O’Hara, that the trio, 51-year-old Colin Duffy, 50-year-old Henry Fitzsimons and 57-year-old Alex McCrory, were covertly recorded and videoed under an operation “code name Op Idealistic”.

Mr Justice O’Hara, sitting without a jury in the Diplock-style trial, also heard that a surveillance operation was carried out the day after a gun attack on a police convoy in the Ardoyne area of north Belfast on December 5, 2013 in which 14 shots were fired by two gunmen.

In the aftermath of the shooting police recovered two AK47 assault rifles, one of which was found in a burnt-out silver VW Passat car used by the gunmen who had fired on the convoy from behind a wall while standing on a trestled scaffold.

The prosecution claim that the accused can be identified from the covert video footage and from an hour-long audio recording of them as they talked in a public park in Lurgan, known as Demesne Park.

Mr Justice O’Hara was told it was the prosecution case that an analysis of the audio recordings by two voice recognition experts provided strong to moderately strong support that the defendants were those captured on disc discussing how to go forward “in light of Ardoyne, and how the leadership were regrouping”.