Gardai are struggling to find a country that will allow failed state witness Jonathan Dowdall to begin a new life there, it has emerged.
The Irish Mirror has learned that several countries who normally relocate Irish people as part of the secretive Witness Security Programme have so far refused to accept Dowdall – because of his associations with dissident IRA terrorists.
“There is a reluctance among courtiers to let him in,” a senior source has told us.
“It is not necessarily his criminal convictions. The major stumbling block is his association with terrorists.”
Dowdall (44) had been hoping to get on the Witness Security Programme along with members of his family – but more than 10 months after he gave evidence against Gerry “The Monk” Hutch in his murder trial, the former Sinn Féin Dublin city councillor is still not on the scheme.
The Special Criminal Court heard last year that Dowdall, a former businessman who served time for waterboarding an innocent man, was being assessed for the Witness Security Programme – but we have established he has still not been admitted to it.
And sources have told us it is because countries like Australia, New Zealand and Canada have simply refused to take him in. Gardai cannot force countries to allow people on the WSP in – they have to decide to accept them.
And it is understood Dowdall’s links to the Real IRA – whom he brought Mr Hutch (60) to meet at least twice after the murder of Daniel Kinahan associate David Byrne – is a bridge too far for those countries. “They don’t want him,’ a source confirmed.
The delay in getting a country to take Dowdall and his family is, according to sources, the reason why detectives are now providing a 24 hour armed protection post at their home in north Dublin- as first revealed by The Star/Mirror earlier this week.
Detectives armed with pistols and MP7 submachine guns are on permanent watch at the family home in north Dublin.
The family left the house shortly after it emerged last December that Dowdall would be giving evidence for the state against Mr Hutch in the David Byrne murder trial – and some of them only returned to it last week.
But gardai believe there is a serious threat against them - and are spending thousands of euro every week on a protection plan for them.
Members of the family who returned to the house is understood to include Dowdall’s father Patrick (64) who was released at the end of Aprl from Limerick Prison, where he had been serving a two year sentence for helping a crime gang carry out the February 2016 murder of Byrne (34) at the Regency Airport Hotel in north Dublin.
Jonathan had been charged with that murder – but that was dropped when he and Patrick both pleaded guilty to facilitating the killing.
The father was jailed for two years while Jonathan was locked up for double that – and is still in prison today. He was the key state witness against Mr Hutch – and claimed the Monk told him he murdered Byrne.
Mr Hutch denied any involvement in the murder, a killing that sparked a bloody Kinahan onslaught that left 18 men dead. Special Criminal Court trial presiding judge Ms Ms Justice Tara Burns dismissed Dowdall’s evidence – and acquitted Mr Hutch.
But Dowdall was still being assessed for the WSP then and gardai have been trying to place him abroad – with no success. Gardai do not comment on security issues, especially the witness security programme, which is shrouded in mystery.
Jonathan Dowdall was heavily criticised by Ms Justice Burns in her judgement in July at the end of the Monk’s murder trial.
He claimed that he met with Gerry Hutch in a park in Whitehall two or three days after the Regency, and that The Monk confessed to the murder.
However the three judges of the Special Criminal Court – led by Ms Justice Burns - completely rejected this evidence and said Dowdall was not a reliable witness who could be trusted.
Dowdall had pleaded for his original murder charge to be dropped and in fact it was, in place for the facilitation charge, before he gave evidence in the trial of Gerry Hutch.
He was then to be considered for the Witness Security Programme on the basis of an ongoing threat to his life.
In her judgement, Ms Justice Tara Burns stated that Dowdall would no doubt be able to rebuild his life. The former councillor claimed that no matter the outcome he would do so, and claimed that he didn’t care if he was killed - so long as his family was safe.
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