Derry mortar bomb suspect Gary McDaid (left) and convicted bomber Seamus McLaughlin. McDaid will be sentenced next week for cigarette smuggling
A Derry republican accused of being a would-be dissident bomber is to be sentenced next week for cigarette smuggling, we can reveal.
Last month, Gary McDaid admitted “encouraging or assisting” a man “believing” he was a cigarette smuggler on Derry’s Letterkenny Road in March 2013.
The 39-year-old, of Glenowen Park in the city, was due to stand trial on charges of conspiracy and having explosives with intent to endanger life and in suspicious circumstances two years ago.
However, at Antrim Crown Court, McDaid admitted helping to evade cigarette duty was his former co-accused, 37-year-old Seamus McLaughlin, of Eastway Gardens in the Creggan estate.
McLaughlin was jailed for 12 years last November for having four, ‘ready to deploy’, improvised mortars and an improvised explosive incendiary device with intent to endanger life on March 3, 2013.
His sentence will be spent half in custody and half on supervised licence following his release.
McDaid pleaded guilty to “encouraging or assisting an offence believing it would be committed contary to Section 45 of the Serious Crime Act 2007’.
The charge read that “on the 3rd day of March 2013 … did an act, namely drive a motorcycle believing that Seamus McLaughlin would commit an offence contary to Section 170 of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979, of being knowingly concerned in carrying cigarettes with intent to evade duty and that this act would assist him to do so”.
Following McDaid’s guilty plea, a prosecutor asked that the other terrorist charges remain on the books and not be proceeded with “without the leave of this court or the court of appeal”.
A probation report was ordered and McDaid was released on continuing bail by Judge Desmond Marrinan.
The judge will pass sentence next Thursday, March 26.
At previous hearings it was alleged motor cycle rider McDaid was travelling directly behind a Citroen Berlingo van being driven by McLaughlin.
Before the van reached its target of Strand Road police station, it was intercepted by heavily armed officers from the PSNI’s covert Special Operations Branch (SOB) who had the van under surveillance as it crossed the border.
During his time in custody, McDaid claimed both the PSNI’s ‘C3’ Intelligence Branch and MI5 agents tried to recruit him as an informant.
He claimed through his lawyers that they tried to put him under pressure to act as an agent inside the Real IRA in Derry.
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