May.20, 2010
A man arrested during the investigation into the laundering of cash stolen in the Northern Bank robbery has been jailed for IRA membership.
Tom Hanlon (43), a father-of-four and self employed painter, was sentenced to three years and three months at the Special Criminal Court in Dublin yesterday.
Convicting Hanlon, Mr Justice Paul Butler, said the court was satisfied that the Co Cork man was “intimately involved in highly suspicious financial transactions involving monies which have been proved to have included proceeds from the bank robbery in Belfast” in December 2004.
But, the judge added, Hanlon, of Pembroke Row, Passage West, had not been charged with a money laundering offence.
The judge said that the court accepted Detective Chief Superintendent Tony Quilter’s belief that Hanlon was an IRA member on February 16 2005 and that this had been corroborated by Hanlon’s failure to answer material questions during his questioning by gardai.
The court heard that Cork chef Don Bullman, who was caught in possession of £81,000 in a Daz washing powder box, had been jailed for four years in 2007 for IRA membership on the same date as Hanlon. During the five- day trial the court heard evidence from Mr Quilter stating that on the basis of confidential information he believed Hanlon was an IRA member in February, 2005.
The court also heard that gardai found items including a Sinn Fein cheque book and two cheques for the Colombia Three campaign as well as other documents in Hanlon's bedroom.
Gardai who carried out searches in the Cork area in February, 2005 found £2.4m in seven bags in a locked cupboard in a house owned by financial adviser Ted Cunningham.
DNA taken from Hanlon matched samples taken from the zip handle of one of the money bags.
The court was told that at least £26m sterling was stolen from the Northern Bank in Belfast in December 2004.