It's reported today that a young man from Dublin's North Inner City has been convicted of "membership of an illegal organisation".
The evidence used to convict him:
* The word of a Garda superintendent, which was "based on confidential information".
* The defendant's decision to remain silent.
* A fingerprint on the back of a van in which a handgun was found.
* And the Óglaigh na hÉireann t-shirt he was wearing, presumably of the kind that can be bought for a few quid at the Sinn Féin shop.
It beggars belief that in the year 2006, in a supposedly advanced democracy, it is still possible to send someone to prison based on such "evidence". This case would have been laughed out of any normal court.
It is further proof of the correctness of Sinn Féin's Ard Fheis decision to make repeal of the Offences Against The State Act a condition of entering any coalition government in the South.
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1 comment:
That's a textbook example of circumstantial evidence. I guess we're to trust that the state wouldn't lie about this sort of thing?
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