IF ONLY HE SPOKE ARABIC

Colourful character proves to be IRA chief's downfall: An unlikely US double agent helped convict the man behind one of Ulster's worst atrocities. (Thomas Harding and Rosie Cowan, August 8, 2003, The Age)

The Real IRA leader who masterminded the Omagh bombing faces life imprisonment after he was found guilty of directing terrorism.

Michael McKevitt is the first person to be convicted in the Republic of Ireland under legislation introduced weeks after the atrocity in the quiet County Tyrone market town that killed 29 people in 1998.

The star prosecution witness was a US truck company boss who came to Ireland on a girlfriend's whim and ended up falling in love with the country. As Dave Rupert's business faced ruin, he risked his life to infiltrate one of the world's most dangerous terrorist groups and is now the reason McKevitt is behind bars.

For years, he played two roles: the hardline republican sympathiser willing to use his US connections to further the terrorist cause, and an eagle-eyed double agent, tapping out every detail of his Irish friends' moves in coded emails to the FBI and British intelligence. Mr Rupert jokingly described himself as a "whore" who would work for anyone if the price was right, but he insisted it was moral conviction that drove him to spy on dissident republicans, and a heart-wrenching television documentary about the Omagh bombing that spurred him to testify against McKevitt.

His conscience is set to make him a very rich man. He collected a total of E750,000 ($1.86 million) from US and British security agencies and could make millions from a book about his experiences. But he has been in a witness protection scheme since he agreed to testify and will be looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life.

Intelligence agencies don't train the Dave Ruperts of the world; they get lucky and stumble into them. If we do ever manage to get someone inside al Qaeda it won't be because of some CIA master plan, but because some whacko felt a twinge of conscience. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 9, 2003 10:25 AM