Former Sinn Féin councillor Jonathan Dowdall has admitted that he lied "out of necessity" when gardaí asked if he knew who was involved in the murder of Kinahan Cartel member David Byrne at the Regency Hotel.
Brendan Grehan SC, defence barrister for Gerard 'The Monk' Hutch, told Dowdall he comes across as "very indignant and convincing when telling lies".
Mr Grehan played video clips of interviews Dowdall gave gardaí in May 2016, in which he told them he spoke to Mr Hutch but said that if the accused was involved in the Regency shooting he was not "that stupid to tell me".
Counsel said he was trying to find out "which Jonathan Dowdall was lying"; the one in court or the one who had told gardaí "in an open and confident way" about his dealings with Mr Hutch.
The State's witness told gardaí at the time that he did not know who carried out the Regency attack but in his direct evidence to the Special Criminal Court earlier this week, Dowdall said Mr Hutch had by then admitted to him that he and another man had shot Mr Byrne at the hotel.
Key witness Dowdall said on Thursday: "I couldn't say I knew who was involved in the Regency. It was a lie out of necessity, my family would have been killed if I said who was involved in the Regency."
Under cross-examination for a third day by Mr Grehan, Dowdall said Mr Hutch would not have spoken to him about the Regency but "things went horribly wrong for him".
"He tried to kill Daniel Kinahan and tried to blame the IRA and he missed Daniel, hit another person and another person was shot. A photo was taken that linked them to the Regency and there was people calling to homes, so that was why he told me," Dowdall said.
During the 2016 interviews, Dowdall also told gardaí that Mr Hutch had called to his home two to three times since the Regency shooting looking for "advice on media stuff" and things like that.
"Long before that" he said Mr Hutch had called to his home in relation to fundraisers for Sinn Féin.
Dowdall added: "None of the politicians will say that," mentioning "Mary Lou [McDonald]" by name.
The former electrician told gardaí earlier in the same interview that Mr Hutch "never" spoke to him about the murder of Mr Byrne saying: "Sure why would he, I'm not a criminal".
'Reckless'
Earlier on Thursday, Dowdall told the non-jury court that he did not know there was "this big Hutch criminal organisation" and never knew the accused's brother Patsy Hutch was "involved in crime".
The ex-politician also admitted on Thursday that he was "reckless" when he helped book a room at the Regency Hotel for one of the raiders on the night before the murder of Mr Byrne.
"I was reckless in booking the room without asking who that room was for and not asking the proper questions," Dowdall said.
In his direct evidence on Monday, Dowdall testified that MrHutch told him in a park several days after the Regency attack, in or around February 8thm 2016, that he and another man had shot Mr Byrne at the hotel.
The ex-politician testified that the accused said he "wasn't happy about shooting the young lad David Byrne and David Byrne being killed".
Asked by prosecution counsel Sean Gillane SC if Mr Hutch had said who had shot Mr Byrne at the Regency Hotel in 2016, Dowdall replied: "He said it was him and 'Mago' Gately."
Dowdall (44) was charged on April 27th, 2021 with the murder of Mr Byrne at the Regency Hotel but pleaded guilty in advance of the trial to a lesser charge of facilitating the Hutch gang by making a hotel room available for use by the perpetrators the night before the attack.
He was jailed by the Special Criminal Court for four years for the facilitation offence. Following Dowdall's sentence on October 3rd, a nolle prosequi - a decision not to proceed - was entered on the murder charge against the former Dublin city councillor.
Mr Hutch (59), last of The Paddocks, Clontarf, Dublin 3, denies the murder of Mr Byrne (33) during a boxing weigh-in at the Regency Hotel on February 5th, 2016.
Under cross-examination on Thursday, Mr Grehan suggested to the witness that he had told "lies and untruths" to gardaí when he was questioned about the murder of Mr Byrne on May 18thm 2016 and that he was very convincing.
"You can suggest what you want," Dowdall replied.
Mr Grehan said Dowdall had come across as "very indignant and convincing when telling lies" before he took the witness through some extracts from these interviews.
The witness agreed he had gone through security in the airport and was about to board a plane to go to see his sister in Dubai when he was arrested for the murder. Asked by counsel if he was shocked, Dowdall said he did not know, adding that his home had been searched six weeks earlier.
At one point on Thursday, Dowdall told Mr Grehan: "You're doing your utmost best to destroy me in every possible way you can and putting insinuations and accusations out to the court, even embarrassing me over medical issues". The barrister said the witness had raised these issues of his own volition.
In the interview played to the court, Dowdall was asked by gardaí when and where was the last time he had seen Mr Hutch.
I respect Gerard because, in the area, people could go to him.
"I couldn't tell you, a few weeks ago, maybe. He probably would have called to the house. It would have been after the house was raided," Dowdall said.
He went on to tell gardaí in the interview: "Nobody knows Gerard. He's a very quiet and distant man. To be honest I like him. I respect Gerard because, in the area, people could go to him. If families were being pressed on, people could go to him."
He added: "Where I grew up, I have respect for him; that's as far as it goes. I wouldn't have been a close friend of his, I respected him, I was a public figure in that community. That was my job, I fixed problems, got people jobs, homes, anti-social behaviour".
Gardaí put it to Dowdall that Mr Hutch had approached him because he was a public figure in the past. "He spoke to me about the attempt to murder him. He was in Spain at the time. A lot of people came to me with their problems," Dowdall said.
He went on to tell gardaí that he did not think Gerard was a bad man.
Asked by gardaí if the accused had ever spoken to him about the Regency shooting, Dowdall said: "No, he never spoke to me in any regard" about the matter.
"Anything at all?" gardaí pressed, to which Dowdall replied: "No, he never did."
"He wouldn't discuss something like that," he added.
Asked if he was a good friend of Mr Hutch's, Dowdall said he never thought he was and supposed his "circle of friends is getting smaller".
"A trusted friend?" asked the gardaí. Dowdall replied: "No, I wouldn't say I was ever a trusted friend. I didn't drink with him."
Asked if Gerard had ever discussed any criminality with him, Dowdall said he had not and added: "Sure why would he? I'm not a criminal."
Under cross-examination pn Thursday afternoon, Dowdall told Mr Grehan he previously did not remember the interview but does now.
Asked by counsel if he was telling lies in the interview, Dowdall said in "some aspects I'm not telling the truth but I'm not telling lies".
"I was hardly gonna say when they asked me certain questions 'yeah he told me this'," Dowdall said.
Asked again by Mr Grehan if he was telling lies, the witness said he did not know what the hotel room at the Regency was used for and only found out much later. "If gardai had said at the time that the room was involved, I would have told them who asked to book the room," he said.
Dowdall told counsel that he believed at the time that Gerard was a very quiet and distant man.
"Not the kind of man to share?" Mr Grehan asked. "He was sharing in the jeep with me, isn't he," Dowdall replied.
Mr Grehan suggested to the witness that he came across in the interview as confident and in effect like a local councillor there to help gardaí with the investigation and offering views about people. "As I told ya's, I didn't learn a lot of stuff until afterwards," Dowdall replied.
Counsel put it to the witness that there was certainly "no mention" by him of a meeting with Mr Hutch on February 8th in that interview.
"At the time I believed he wasn't involved in drugs and I believed a completely different picture of what was found out about the room," he said.
'Not a trusted friend'
At one point, Dowdall said this was his fourth day in the witness box and he was not going to "go over and over" every comment that he said seven years ago.
Mr Grehan said he was trying to find out which Jonathan Dowdall was lying.
"If I didn't believe they were an innocent family at the time, I wouldn't have tried to help them," Dowdall said.
"You don't think Gerard Hutch is a bad man?" counsel asked. "I didn't at the time. I didn't know at the time I had been set up with involvement in a murder," Dowdall said.
Mr Grehan put it to the witness that he had told the court on Monday that Mr Hutch had confessed to him about the murder by this time.
"I didn't know the room was involved in that murder at the time. A good man and his brother would not do that to a person they have known for years, who does that?" said Dowdall.
Dowdall agreed he had told gardaí that Mr Hutch was not the kind of man who would talk about criminality.
"You told gardaí that Gerard isn't the fella who goes around shooting his mouth off?" counsel asked. "I wouldn't reckon he would ever come to me, things went horribly wrong for him and he planned to go in and kill Daniel Kinahan and blame the IRA," Dowdall said.
The witness went on to say he was never a "trusted friend" of Mr Hutch until "they decided" to have me as a trusted friend. "You have suggested since I got in the box I'm nothing but a liar and involved in organised crime and I'm the worst person. What am I supposed to tell gardaí, he confessed to me to this," he said.
Dowdall told Mr Grehan that he was telling the truth when he told gardaí that he was not a "trusted lieutenant" for the Hutchs and that he was telling the truth when he told gardaí he was not involved in the Regency attack.
He said he did not know that a room he was involved in booking at the hotel was involved in the shooting and only found out it was when gardaí put it to him.
He said Patsy Hutch told him that the room was nothing to do with it and added: "I believed Patsy, I believed the room wasn't involved."
Dowdall said that after he was arrested he was named in the media and "everything I was being questioned about was leaked".
He said he does not know if it was a coincidence, but there were stories online that he was paid €250,000 to organise the Regency attack and a gunman "ends up in the room I'm involved in booking".
He added: "Someone had an agenda to blame somebody." Mr Grehan asked if he was blaming the gardai. Dowdall responded: "I'm not blaming the guards. The Hutchs did that to blame the IRA and it went bad when they missed Daniel."
Both Dowdall and his father, Patrick Dowdall, have pleaded guilty to participating in or contributing to activity intending to or being reckless as to whether such participation or contribution could facilitate the commission of a serious offence by a criminal organisation or any of its members, to wit the murder of Mr Byrne, by making a room available at the Regency Hotel, Drumcondra, Dublin 9 for that criminal organisation or its members, within the State on February 4th, 2016.
Preparations
The trial has heard that Dowdall drove his father to the Regency hotel on the evening before the attack on February 4th and remained there until Patrick Dowdall paid for the room and obtained the room's key cards from reception. Around this time a phone associated with Jonathan Dowdall used a mast located at the hotel.
The prosecution case is that the late dissident republican Kevin Murray used the hotel room at the Regency on the night of February 4th, and that he was the man seen wearing a flat cap when Mr Byrne was killed and cooperated with the "tactical team" that raided the Regency Hotel on February 5th.
Mr Murray died from motor neurone disease in 2017 before he could be brought to trial.
The trial continues on Friday before presiding judge Ms Justice Tara Burns sitting with Judge Sarah Berkeley and Judge Grainne Malone.
Dowdall has previous convictions for false imprisonment, threatening to kill and causing serious harm from January 2015.
Dowdall's father, Patrick Dowdall (65) was jailed for two years before the Regency trial started after he also admitted his part in booking the hotel room for the raiders.
Mr Byrne, from Crumlin, was shot dead at the hotel in Whitehall, Dublin 9 after five men, three disguised as armed gardaí in tactical clothing and carrying AK-47 assault rifles, stormed the building during the attack, which was hosting a boxing weigh-in at the time.
The victim was shot by two of the tactical assailants and further rounds were delivered to his head and body.
Mr Byrne died after suffering catastrophic injuries from six gunshots fired from a high-velocity weapon to the head, face, stomach, hand and legs.
Mr Hutch's two co-accused - Paul Murphy (61), of Cherry Avenue, Swords, Co Dublin, and Jason Bonney (50), of Drumnigh Wood, Portmarnock, Dublin 13, have pleaded not guilty to participating in or contributing to the murder of David Byrne by providing access to motor vehicles on February 5th, 2016.
