Paul Thomas Murphy Popular Books

Paul Thomas Murphy Biography & Facts

Thomas Murphy (Irish: Tomás Mac Murchaidh: born 26 August 1949), also known as Slab, is an Irish republican, believed to be a former Chief of Staff of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. His farm straddles County Armagh and County Louth on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. In December 2015, Murphy was found guilty on nine counts of tax evasion following a lengthy investigation by the Criminal Assets Bureau of the Republic of Ireland. In February 2016, Murphy was jailed and sentenced to 18 months in prison. One of three brothers, Murphy is a lifelong bachelor who lived on the Louth side of his farm before his imprisonment. IRA involvement Murphy was allegedly involved with the South Armagh Brigade of the IRA before being elected chief of staff by the IRA Army Council. Toby Harnden (ex-correspondent for the Daily Telegraph) named him as planning the Warrenpoint ambush of 1979, in which 18 British soldiers were killed, and he was also allegedly implicated in the Mullaghmore bombing the same day, which killed four people (including two children and Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma). Murphy was involved in smuggling huge stockpiles of weapons from Libya in the 1980s and was a member of the Army Council that decided to end its first ceasefire with the 1996 Docklands bombing in London that killed two men. Accused by the Sunday Times of directing an IRA bombing campaign in Britain, in 1987 Murphy unsuccessfully sued the paper for libel in Dublin. The original verdict was overturned by the court of appeal because of omissions in the judge's summing up and there was a retrial, which Murphy also lost. At the retrial, both Sean O'Callaghan and Eamon Collins, former members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, testified against Murphy, as did members of the Gardaí, Irish customs officials, British Army and local TD Brendan McGahon. Collins, who had also written a book about his experiences, Killing Rage, was beaten and killed by having a spike driven through his face, near his home in Newry eight months later. In 1998, a Dublin court dismissed Murphy's case after a high-profile trial, during which Murphy stated that he had: "Never been a member of the IRA, no way" and claimed not to know where the Maze prison was. The jury ruled, however, that he was an IRA commander and a smuggler. The Sunday Times subsequently published statements given by Adrian Hopkins, the skipper who ferried weapons from Libya to the IRA, to the French authorities who intercepted the fifth and final Eksund shipment. Hopkins detailed how Murphy met a named Libyan agent in Greece, paid for the weapons to be imported, and helped unload them when they arrived in Ireland. According to A Secret History of the IRA by Ed Moloney, Murphy has been the IRA Army Council's chief of staff since 1997. Toby Harnden's Bandit Country: The IRA & South Armagh also details Murphy's IRA involvement. On 20 September 2016 the BBC's Spotlight aired a programme in which an alleged British spy who had infiltrated the IRA claimed that in 2006, Murphy had demanded the killing of Denis Donaldson – an IRA member and British informer – in order to maintain discipline. The BBC said it had tried to contact Murphy but had received no reply. He has yet to respond to the allegation. On 23 September 2016, the Donaldson family's solicitor said that the allegation was "absolute nonsense." He also said that "It does not marry in any way with the lines of inquiry that have been progressed by the Garda or by the Police Ombudsman". Smuggling allegations and denials In October 2005, officers of the British Assets Recovery Agency and the Irish Criminal Assets Bureau carried out raids on a number of businesses in Manchester and Dundalk. It was extensively reported in the media that the investigation was aimed at damaging the suspected multi-million-pound empire of Murphy, who according to the BBC's Underworld Rich List, has accumulated up to £40 million through smuggling oil, cigarettes, grain and pigs, as well as through silent or partial ownership in legitimate businesses and in property. A large, purpose-built underground chamber that Gardaí believe the IRA used for interrogation was discovered close to Murphy's home. In his first-ever press release, issued on 12 October 2005, Murphy denied he owned any property and denied that he had any links with co-accused Cheshire businessman Dermot Craven (Frank Murphy, Thomas' brother, was a client of Cravens). Thomas Murphy stated: "I have been a republican all my life and fully support the peace process. I will continue to play whatever role I can, to see it work." Furthermore, Murphy claimed that he had to sell property to cover his legal fees after his failed libel case against the Sunday Times, and that he made a living from farming. He went on to say: "There is absolutely no foundation to the allegations about me which have been carried in the media for some time, and repeated at length over the past week, I want to categorically state, for the record, that all of these allegations are totally untrue." On 9 March 2006, police, soldiers and customs officials from both sides of the Irish border launched a large dawn raid on his house and several other buildings in the border region. Three persons were arrested by the Gardaí, but were released three days after. A fleet of tankers, computers, documents, two shotguns, more than 30,000 cigarettes and the equivalent of 800,000 euros in sterling bank notes, euro bank notes and cheques were seized. Four diesel laundering facilities attached to a major network of storage tanks, some of which were underground, were also found. The Irish Criminal Assets Bureau later obtained seizure orders to take possession of euro cash and cheques and sterling cash and cheques, together worth around one million Euros. Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams made a public statement in support of Murphy following the March 2006 raids. Under political and media pressure over allegations of the IRA's continued presence in South Armagh, Adams said: "Tom Murphy is not a criminal. He's a good republican and I read his statement after the Manchester raids and I believe what he says and also and very importantly he is a key supporter of Sinn Féin's peace strategy and has been for a very long time." He also said: "I want to deal with what is an effort to portray Tom Murphy as a criminal, as a bandit, as a gang boss, as someone who is exploiting the republican struggle for his own ends, as a multimillionaire. There is no evidence to support any of that." Commenting in Armagh on Murphy's imprisonment for tax fraud, Arlene Foster, First Minister of Northern Ireland said: "Whilst some people refer to Murphy as a 'good republican' the people of this area know him to be a criminal." Assets seizure and settlement Murphy was arrested in Dundalk, County Louth on 7 November 2007 by detectives from the Criminal Assets Bureau, on charges.... Discover the Paul Thomas Murphy popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Paul Thomas Murphy books.