A Co Tyrone man jailed for six years after a bomb was found at a Co Dublin hotel has had his conviction upheld by the Court of Appeal in Dublin.
Samuel Devlin (59), who had an address at the 'Golf Suite', Finnstown Castle Hotel, Lucan, was found guilty by the three-judge Special Criminal Court earlier this year of possessing the explosive substance PETN.
A three-week trial heard evidence from Garda detectives that he was a bomb maker for the Real IRA.
Giving judgment in the Court of Appeal yesterday, Mr Justice George Birmingham said when gardai searched an "apartment/chalet" at the hotel in May 2014, Devlin was present and a large assortment of electronic items and "most significantly" 26 metres of detonator cord was found.
The cord was wrapped in a towel inside a laptop case and Pentaerythritol Tetranitrate (PETN) was located within the core of the cord.
The search was carried out after a Northern Ireland-registered car, which had been stolen earlier in the border area, had been found in the car park of the hotel containing a large home-made explosive device.
It as the first time in 16 years that such a bomb had been discovered in Dublin and hundreds of guests, including a wedding party, had to be evacuated.
However, Devlin was not linked with the car bomb.
Mr Justice Birmingham said the court rejected a challenge to the admissibility of DNA evidence based on information provided to Devlin while in custody.
A contention that the trial court erred in equating occupation of the suite with possession of the PETN was also rejected.
There was ample evidence to support the findings of the trial court, the Court of Appeal held.
Mr Justice Birmingham, who sat with Mr Justice John Edwards and Mr Justice John Hedigan, said it was not persuaded that the trial was "in any way" unsatisfactory or that the decision was "in any way" unsafe.
