| Thomas Murphy | |
|---|---|
| Nickname | "Slab" |
| Born | 26 August 1949 Ballybinaby, Hackballscross, County Louth, Republic of Ireland. |
| Years of service | 1969–1998 |
| Rank | Chief of Staff of the Provisional Irish Republican Army |
| Commands held | South Armagh Brigade Provisional Irish Republican Army |
| Battles/wars | The Troubles |
Thomas "Slab" Murphy (Irish: Tomás Mac Murchaidh: born 26 August 1949[1]) is believed to be the former Chief of Staff of the Provisional Irish Republican Army.[2] His farm straddles County Armagh and County Louth, the border between the Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.[3] The nickname 'Slab' was inherited from Murphy's father, who was a large and imposing man. One of three brothers, Murphy is a lifelong bachelor who lives at his farm at Ballybinaby, Hackballscross, County Louth.[3]
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Murphy was allegedly involved with the South Armagh Brigade of the IRA before becoming Chief of Staff of the IRA Army Council.[4] Toby Harnden (ex-correspondent for the Daily Telegraph) has named him as planning the Warrenpoint ambush of 1979, in which 18 British soldiers were killed, and was also allegedly implicated in the Mullaghmore bombing the same day, which killed four people including Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma. As early as 1985, he was identified in a veiled way by the Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, Sir John Hermon, when in 1985 he claimed that a "wealthy pig smuggler" living on the border with the Republic of Ireland was behind an IRA bombing that killed four RUC officers close to the border in May, earlier that year. Murphy was involved in smuggling in huge stockpiles of weapons from Libya in the 1980s[5] and was part of the IRA army council that decided to end its first ceasefire with the London Canary Wharf Docklands bomb in 1996 that killed two men.[6]
Accused by the Sunday Times of directing an IRA bombing campaign in Britain, in 1987 Murphy unsuccessfully sued the paper for libel in Dublin. The original verdict was overturned by the court of appeal because of omissions in the judge's summing up and there was a retrial which he also lost. At this retrial both Sean O'Callaghan and Eamon Collins, former members of the IRA testified against him, as did members of the Gardaí, Irish Customs, British Army and his local TD. Collins, who also had written a book about his experiences entitled Killing Rage, was beaten and killed by having a spike driven through his face near his home in Newry eight months later. In 1998, an Irish court dismissed Murphy's case after a high-profile trial during which Murphy stated that he had: "Never been a member of the IRA, no way" and claimed not to know where the Maze prison was. The Irish jury ruled, however, that he was an IRA commander and a smuggler.[6][7]
The Sunday Times subsequently published statements given by Adrian Hopkins, the skipper of the boats which ferried weapons from Libya to the IRA, to the French authorities who intercepted the fifth and final Eksund shipment. Hopkins told how Murphy had met a named Libyan agent in Greece, paid for the weapons importation and helped unload them when they arrived in Ireland.
According to Ed Moloney's A Secret History of the IRA, Murphy has been the IRA Army Council's Chief of Staff since 1997. Toby Harnden's Bandit Country: the IRA and South Armagh also details Murphy's IRA involvement.
In October 2005, officers of the British Assets Recovery Agency and the Irish Criminal Assets Bureau carried out raids on a number of businesses in Manchester and Dundalk.[8] It has been extensively reported in the media – as a result of briefings by the Criminal Assets Bureau in the Republic of Ireland who were involved in parallel raids – that the investigation is aimed at damaging the suspected multi-million pound empire of Murphy, who according to the BBC's Underworld Rich List, has accumulated up to £40 million through smuggling oil, cigarettes, grain and pigs; as well as through silent or partial ownership in legitimate businesses, and in property.[9]
In his first-ever press release, issued on October 12, 2005, Murphy denied he owned any property and denied that he had any links with co-accused Cheshire businessman Dermot Craven (Frank Murphy, Murphy's brother, was a client of Cravens). Thomas Murphy stated:
I have been a republican all my life and fully support the peace process. I will continue to play whatever role I can, to see it work.
Furthermore, Murphy claimed that he had to sell property to cover his legal fees after his failed libel case against the Sunday Times and that he made a living from farming. He went on to say:
There is absolutely no foundation to the allegations about me which have been carried in the media for some time, and repeated at length over the past week, I want to categorically state, for the record, that all of these allegations are totally untrue."[10]
On 9 March 2006 police, soldiers and customs officials from both the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom launched a large dawn raid on his house and several other buildings in the border region. Several arrests were made. A fleet of tankers, computers, documents, two shotguns, over 30,000 cigarettes and the equivalent of 800,000 euros in sterling bank notes, euro bank notes and cheques were seized. Four laundering facilities attached to a major network of storage tanks, some of which were underground, were also found.[11] The Irish Criminal Assets Bureau later obtained seizure orders to take possession of euro cash and cheques and sterling cash and cheques, together worth around one million Euros.[12]
Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams made a public statement in support of Murphy following the March 2006 raids. Under political and media pressure over allegations of the IRA's continued presence in South Armagh, Adams said:
Tom Murphy is not a criminal. He's a good republican and I read his statement after the Manchester raids and I believe what he says and also and very importantly he is a key supporter of Sinn Féin's peace strategy and has been for a very long time.[13]
He also said:
I want to deal with what is an effort to portray Tom Murphy as a criminal, as a bandit, as a gang boss, as someone who is exploiting the republican struggle for his own ends, as a multimillionaire. There is no evidence to support any of that.[14]
And also:
He's a good republican ... Tom Murphy was one of the supporters of this peace process.[15]
Murphy was arrested in Dundalk, County Louth on 7 November 2007 by detectives from the Criminal Assets Bureau on charges relating to alleged revenue offences. The following day, he was charged with tax evasion under the Tax Consolidation Act.[16][17] Murphy was later released on his own bail of €20,000 with an independent surety of €50,000.
On 17 October 2008 in an agreed legal settlement, Murphy and his brothers paid over £1million in assets and cash to the authorities in Britain and Ireland, in settlement of a global crime and fraud investigation in relation to proceeds of crime associated with smuggling and money laundering. After an investigation involving the Irish Criminal Assets Bureau and the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency, over 625,000 euros (£487,000) in cash and cheques was confiscated by Irish courts, with nine properties in northwest England worth £445,000 were confiscated by British courts.[2] Murphy is still fighting a claim in the Irish courts for tax evasion, relating to non-completion of tax returns for eight years from 1996.
On April 26, 2010 he was further remanded on bail.[18]