Frank McBrearty Junior has refused to allow himself to be cross-examined by lawyers representing various gardaí and has walked out of the Morris Tribunal.
Mr McBrearty said he would not allow himself to be cross-examined by people who framed him unless he got legal aid.
He said that until Minister for Justice Michael McDowell gives him the same rights as the Garda Commissioner, the AGSI and the GRA, he will not allow any cross-examination.
The tribunal chairman told Mr McBrearty that he would have to go to the High Court to direct Mr McBrearty to come back and give evidence.
Mr McBrearty was also told he could get a criminal conviction and was strongly advised to allow the cross-examination.
Mr McBrearty said he was prepared to take the consequence and was sticking to his principles. He said he was prepared to go to jail for as long as it takes to get justice for him and his family.
He said that once Mr McDowell accedes to the fact that he has broken his constitutional rights and gives him legal aid he will allow himself to be cross-examined but not until then.
Tribunal views video
The tribunal earlier viewed a video of Mr McBrearty in custody in Letterkenny Garda Station in February 1997.
Mr McBrearty has claimed that something was deliberately erased from it. He said he would go home to Raphoe to get his copy of the video, and he wants the tribunal to play it in full.
Mr McBrearty was arrested in February 1997 in connection with an alleged assault, but he said he was questioned from the start about the death of Richie Barron.
Mr McBrearty admitted punching himself in the face four times saying 'He's assaulting me, he's assaulting me' in a desperate attempt to get out of an interrogation being conducted by Garda John O'Dowd who, he said, was physically abusing him.
'If I had a knife,' Mr McBrearty said, 'I would have cut my wrists to get out of that station because I wasn't going to suffer the same abuse I had last time.'
He told the tribunal he was hysterical and desperate and had some kind of a breakdown in the garda station and should have been put into a psychiatric ward. Mr McBrearty said he had two breakdowns after that.
He earlier told the tribunal that after his release from garda custody he walked for five or six miles to clear his head.
He then went to see his father but discovered he had gone to Dublin to see Labour TD Joan Burton.
The reason for this, he said, was because then and still to this day Donegal politicians turned blind eyes and deaf ears to this scandal.
He told the tribunal that he suffered post traumatic stress and had been severely humiliated in front of his children and the public.
