10/12/03
McDowell targets crime gangs with tougher laws
By John Breslin
ORGANISED crime gangs in Dublin, Limerick and Cork will be the first targets of wide-ranging legislation planned by Justice Minister Michael McDowell.
Following the collapse of the Liam Keane murder trial last month, Mr McDowell is proposing legislation which:
Will make it an offence "to knowingly participate in, or contribute to, the activities of a criminal organisation for the purpose of enhancing the ability of the organisation to commit an indictable offence".
Will make the opinion of a garda chief superintendent that an accused is a member of a criminal gang admissible in all courts, except the non-jury Special Criminal Court.
Will significantly increase the Garda Síochána's powers of arrest, search and detention.
Will give additional powers to take DNA samples. The minister is in favour of holding DNA samples taken from suspects for an unlimited period of time.
The legislation will define what exactly an organised crime gang is. Mr McDowell is studying EU and United Nations' definitions of what constitutes an organised crime gang.
He cited the example of Eastern European Mafia or Chinese Triad gangs. There must be some structure to the organisation and it cannot just be a group of people getting together to carry out a series of crimes, he said.
On the key issue of witnesses who make statements and later retract them the central reason for the collapse of the Liam Keane murder trial the Government is studying the Canadian model.
There, statements are admissible because the witness is still available for cross-examination and the original statement is videotaped. Mr McDowell said these proposals may be included in the Criminal Justice Bill.
Speaking yesterday before the Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy gave his backing to the introduction of pre-trial hearings to speed up criminal trials. The hearings would involve identifying agreed evidence, consideration of expert reports and reading of documents into the record.
Mr Conroy warned that crime gangs in Limerick, Dublin and Cork had reached new levels of criminality. Drug traffickers and crime gangs in these three cities were paying protection money to dissident republicans, he said.
In addition to protection rackets, the dissident republicans were also involved in smuggling and providing guns to criminals in three of the four major cities.
The commissioner was speaking during the last of a series of meetings of the justice committee to discuss the future of the criminal justice system, particularly the intimidation and treatment of witnesses and gangland crime.
Sean
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