The Special Criminal Court has dismissed a series of legal challenges to the garda interviews and detention of two men accused of helping a criminal gang commit the murder of David Byrne at the Regency Hotel in Dublin over six-and-a-half years ago.
The three judges said they were satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that garda interviews with Paul Murphy and Jason Bonney, which they gave in their homes without having been formally cautioned, were admissible as evidence in the case.
Presiding judge Ms Justice Tara Byrnes said the mens' utterances were not obtained in unfair circumstances.
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She also said that while it was "a cornerstone of our democracy" that everyone has a right to silence and everyone has a right not to incriminate themselves, people can speak to gardaí on a voluntary basis and gardaí can speak to them.
Mr Bonney, 51, spoke to gardaí in his home on 21 February 2016, just over two weeks after the murder and while he declined to make a statement about his movements that day, he agreed to talk to them and had no objection to a memo being kept.
He refused to sign the memo at the end of the conversation but told gardaí he was happy it was an accurate reflection of it.
Mr Murphy, 61, spoke to gardaí at his home in Swords the following day and signed a memo of the conversation.
Mr Murphy of Cherry Avenue, Swords, Co Dublin, and Mr Bonney of Drumnigh Wood, Portmarnock, Dublin 13, have pleaded not guilty to participating in or contributing to the murder of Mr Byrne by providing access to motor vehicles on 5 February 2016.
Gerard Hutch, with a last address at The Paddocks, Clontarf, Dublin 3, denies the murder of Mr Byrne during a boxing weigh-in at the Regency Hotel on 5 February 2016.
The court has also heard that a tracking device had been fitted to Jonathan Dowdall's [Toyota] Land Cruiser when he drove Gerard Hutch across the border into Northern Ireland two weeks after the murder.
Retired Detective Inspector William Hanrahan said he was aware the jeep had a tracking device.
He said information came from the PSNI that the jeep been at a BP Petrol Station on the Newry Road in Armagh and at The Quays Shopping Centre in Newry.
He said the information came to the Garda Crime and Security section and he was then asked to contact a different section of the PSNI to secure CCTV footage at the locations.
The officer said he was working in the Special Detective Unit, which investigates terrorism, and was at the time concerned about the movement of explosive and firearms north of the border by the IRA.
Another Garda Inspector from the Special Detective Unit told the court that he knew that an audio device was attached to Dowdall's Land Cruiser, but did not know anything about a tracker device.
Inspector Padraig Boyce said he became involved in the wider investigation of the murder of David Byrne because of information in relation to the activity of an unlawful terrorist organisation.
He also said he was involved in the search of the former Sinn Féin councillor's home on 9 March 2016 because he suspected that firearms and explosives were being stored there and he knew of the interactions between Dowdall and convicted IRA man Shane Rowan.
He said at the time he got the search warrant he believed Dowdall was in control of a firearm.
No guns or explosives were found during the two-day search, but a USB key was discovered in a kitchen cupboard which showed Dowdall and his father Patrick torturing a man.
Both men subsequently pleaded guilty and were jailed by the Special Criminal Court.
Earlier, a bar manager at the Regency Hotel told the court that he was on duty on the day of the murder of David Byrne and kept people away from the body in the lobby until emergency services arrived.
Karl Wall also said he heard the gunshots, smelled the gunpowder and also saw another man who had been shot and injured in the leg lying on ground in the ballroom where the boxing weigh-in took place.
