John Gilligan has been ordered to stand trial on Monday in Spain on drugs and weapons charges.
The convicted drug dealer, prosecuted over the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin, has been warned he faces more than eight years in jail if found guilty.
Gilligan’s new court date was set earlier this year after the trial was suspended last October following a no-show by his son Darren.
Darren is currently languishing in prison in Spain after being held in Ireland earlier this year on a European Arrest Warrant and remanded in custody following his extradition from Ireland.
Documentary
The newly-scheduled trial, now due to last three days and finish on Wednesday instead of the single day initially pencilled in, will begin just hours before John Gilligan appears on Irish TV screens in the first of a three-part series on Virgin Media about his life of crime.
The pint-sized criminal will insist in the series he did not orchestrate the Veronica Guerin killing in 1996 but admit members of his drugs gang murdered her and try to pin the blame for ordering the hit on his dead criminal sidekick John Traynor.
He will also admit he is set to go to hell because of his crimes in the documentary series.
Spanish state prosecutors demanded Gilligan receive an 18-month prison sentence for unlawful weapons possession after a gun.
Spanish police linked to the Irish crime reporter’s Veronica Guerin’s assassination was found hidden in the back garden of Gilligan’s Costa Blanca home.
Detectives said when he was arrested in October 2020 the gun was the “same make and model” as the one used to kill Guerin in an ambush at a red light on the outskirts of Dublin in June 1996.
But Spanish state prosecutors went on to describe it as a Colt Defender and not the rare Colt Python .357 Magnum police identified it as immediately after the Gilligan detention.
They also called it an air pistol in a written six-page indictment, although well-placed sources reacted by claiming police had got the right firearm and the indictment contained an “error.”
They indicated that although it was an air pistol, it had been classified as a handgun because it could be used to fire bullets.
Charges
Gilligan, 71, is set to be told at a criminal court in Torrevieja tomorrow prosecutors also want him jailed for another two years if convicted of smuggling cannabis into Ireland, four years for illegally exporting powerful sleeping pills and 10 months for membership of a criminal gang.
His conviction on all four charges could result in a prison sentence of eight years and four months.
His British girlfriend Sharon Oliver and son Darren have also been summoned to stand trial along with his playboy pal ‘Fat’ Tony Armstrong
Armstrong, investigated but never charged over the murders of Shane Coates and Stephen Sugg after their bodies were discovered under a Costa Blanca warehouse he rented in July 2006, was held in a second round of arrests in February four months after the raid on John Gilligan’s expat home.
A pre-trial indictment submitted to court officials after a lengthy judicial probe accused Gilligan of masterminding a plot to smuggle drug deliveries from Spain to Ireland inside consignments of toys and flip-flops.
Prosecutors say the drugs included cannabis and thousands of prescription-only sleeping pills dubbed zimmos which heroin addicts use to help them sleep and numb pain.
The six-page indictment, formulated against Gilligan and eight alleged accomplices including his partner and son, details the exhaustive operation involving phone taps and car follows by a specialist Spanish police organised crime unit which ended with the October 20th 2020 arrests and raids including one on the villa in the sunshine resort of Torrevieja the criminal shared with his partner.
Gilligan, released from prison in Ireland in October 2103 after serving 17 years of a 20-year sentence for trafficking cannabis resin, was the only one of the nine people indicted charged over the weapons find despite earlier reports pointing to the likelihood his partner could also be accused.
Of the gun the prosecutors have said in their pre-trial indictment: “The pistol, with its case and ammunition was buried in the garden and at John Gilligan’s disposal.
“It has been catalogued as a short firearm equipped for use.”
Adding the chief suspect had no licence for the firearm, it added: “The cartridges were in good condition, hadn’t been modified and were apt for use with the pistol that was seized.”
Detailing the everyday items alleged gang leader Gilligan and his accomplices are accused of using to send cannabis and powerful sleeping pills from Spain to Ireland, the indictment said of the courier deliveries seized: “One opened on October 2020 contained seven boxes of children’s toys, two flip-flops and inside a towel, two packets containing marihuana buds weighing 685 and 700 grammes respectively.”
The same combination of towels, toys and flip-flops were also used to smuggle prescription medicines including pills used to treat insomnia like Limovane and Zoplicone according to the prosecution document.
The number of powerful sleeping pills seized totalled more than 27,000.
Gilligan, who spent nearly two months on remand in prison following his Spain arrest, has remained a free man since the suspension of his trial last October.
He was given his passport back, so he could drive his girlfriend to Britain for an operation.
The unexpected twist in the case occurred after lawyers for the nine defendants due to be put in the dock failed to thrash out a plea bargain deal with the state prosecutor in a behind-closed-doors hearing before a judge ahead of a brief public session.
Gilligan, looking dapper in a light grey suit over a white shirt, could be overheard telling one of his co-defendants in the court corridor before the short public hearing: “I signed a declaration six months ago accepting blame and absolving others of responsibility.”
Sources confirmed after the trial suspension a plea bargain deal had been discussed
But they said the state prosecutor’s offer of a three-year prison sentence for the illegal exportation of powerful sleeping pills called zimmos from Spain to Ireland in exchange for confessions had been the main sticking point along with Darren Gilligan’s absence.
Police sources said at the time of the initial October 2020 arrests that the raid on drugs baron Gilligan’s villa crucially took place as he was preparing a delivery to Ireland of marihuana and zimmos.
A Spanish National Police spokesman did not name Gilligan in a force statement at the time but said after his arrest: “Investigators managed to intercept four postal deliveries in Spain in which four kilos of marihuana and 15,000 pills had been hidden.
“The well-known Irish criminal who allegedly headed the organisation was sentenced to 28 years in prison in 2001 in Ireland and served 17 years.
“Irish investigators linked his organisation to the murder of an Irish journalist.”
The force added in its statement, before it was reported the weapon found buried in his garden was not the one used in the Veronica Guerin murder: “The revolver that has been found is the same mark and model as the one used in the assassination of an Irish journalist in Dublin in 1996.
“Spanish officers are working with the Irish police to determine if it’s the same gun used to end her life.”
Ms Guerin was working for the Sunday Independent when she was shot dead at a red traffic light on the Naas Dual Carriageway near Newlands Cross on the outskirts of Dublin on June 26th 1996.
The gun used to shoot her by one of two men on a motorbike was never found.
Her funeral was attended by then Taoiseach John Bruton, who described her murder as an “attack on democracy.”
The assassination led to the formation of Ireland’s Criminal Assets Bureau targeting organised criminals’ illegally acquired assets.
The 2003 biographical crime film Veronica Guerin, directed by Joel Schumacher and starring Cate Blanchett in the title role, was the second to be inspired by the reporter’s life.
Gilligan was tried for Ms Guerin’s murder with other members of his drugs gang after a former soldier who prepared the gun used to kill her agreed to turn state’s witness and was given immunity from prosecution.
Judge Darmuid O’Donovan admitted as he acquitted him at Dublin’s Special Criminal Court he had “grave suspicions” the drugs baron was involved in the killing.
Former friend Brian ‘Tosser’ Meehan was convicted of the crime reporter’s murder and remains in prison.
Although Gilligan was acquitted of ordering the reporter’s murder in 2001, he was convicted of importing two tons of cannabis resin worth £32 million and sentenced to 28 years in prison which was reduced on appeal.
It is not known where in Spain he is currently living.
