The State witness Jonathan Dowdall has finished giving his evidence in the Special Criminal Court in the trial of Gerard Hutch for the murder of Kinahan gangster David Byrne at the Regency Hotel.
The case has been adjourned until 11 January.
Mr Dowdall earlier rejected a defence assertion that he is lying when he said Mr Hutch confessed to him in February 2016 that he had shot Mr Byrne.
Dowdall testified that Mr Hutch told him this at a meeting in a park in Whitehall in Dublin three days after the murder.
The 59-year-old, from The Paddocks in Clontarf in Dublin, has pleaded not guilty to the murder.
This afternoon, Dowdall denied he was portraying himself as "a victim" when he went on RTÉ's Liveline programme in March 2016 to complain about gardaí raiding his home.
He told Joe Duffy that he and his family had worked all their lives, that he had built up an electrical business that employed 20 people and he was not a criminal.
Gardaí found a USB key during the search, which showed Dowdall waterboarding and torturing a man who had come to his house the year before to buy his motorbike.
The interview was played in full in the Special Criminal Court today.
'Not a victim'
"I'm not portraying myself as a victim," Dowdall said today. "I wasn’t involved in the Regency."
He said he was afraid he was going to be raided over the van "because it was connected to me and Patsy".
"I wasn’t involved in organised crime or criminality, I accept I’m now classed as a criminal because of Mr Hurley," he said.
"Every penny I earned I worked hard for, I was never involved in criminality in the sense of making ill gotten gains."
The former Sinn Féin councillor also told Joe Duffy that he had been "named and tried to shame me across the media because of the link to Sinn Féin".
He also insisted that he handed the key card to the room at the Regency that was used by one of the gunmen to Hutch, and not his brother Patsy, the night before the murder of Mr Byrne.
"100% it was Gerard Hutch," he said today. "If it was Patsy I would say, I’ve no reason. Why would I say I met Gerard if I didn’t."
He also insisted he hadn’t changed his story. "It didn’t evolve over time, that’s the truth," he said.
When defence counsel pointed out to him that his phone registered near the park in Whitehall on the Sunday afternoon after the Regency and not on the Monday when Eddie Hutch was shot dead, he insisted he was never clear whether he met Mr Hutch in the park on Sunday or Monday.
"Your honour the meeting happened," he said. "The card was handed over, if I’m a little bit off on the time, it happened.
"I never once said it was definitely the Monday and I never once said it was definitely the Sunday. I was referencing the meeting around Neddy getting shot. I knew it was the paper and Neddy.
"I wouldn’t say something like this if it wasn’t true. I’m telling you 100% fact. He took the card keys and he met me in that park and told me what he told me."
When Senior Counsel Brendan Grehan put it to him that he tells lies he replied: "Everybody tells lies and I told a lie to the court as you pointed out.
"You said I lied to the Special Criminal Court. What I’m telling is the truth, the truth is the truth, he got the keycard. He told me he shot the kid and that is the facts.
"You’ve tore me to shreds up there in the last week. If the judges in this chamber don’t believe me that’s up to them."
Dowdall’s evidence concluded after eight days in the witness box and Mr Grehan thanked him for his evidence.
"Is it over now?" he asked. "Yes," Ms Justice Tara Burns replied.
Prosecuting counsel Sean Gillane said he expected there would be about two more weeks of evidence and legal argument.
Cross-examination
Earlier, Mr Hutch's defence counsel cross examined the former Sinn Féin councillor for a seventh day.
Mr Grehan put it to Dowdall that when he said Mr Hutch "confessed to you, specifically in the park, that's a lie".
"But, it's not a lie," Dowdall replied. "He did do it."
Extracts from the bugged garda recordings of the two men's conversations on 7 March 2016 when they drove to and from Northern Ireland were played to Dowdall and he was asked to comment on them.
At one point, Dowdall said to Mr Hutch on that recording: "Can you remember that meeting with Kevin, you never admitted that was you at the Regency, did you not?"
Hutch replied "what?", as he is hard of hearing and is wearing headphones in the court.
"Well we did obviously if you're giving them the bleeding yokes."
"Yeah he knows," Mr Hutch replies.
Dowdall said today that this conversation refers to a meeting Dowdall and Mr Hutch had with dissident republicans three weeks earlier on 20 February.
He says Hutch is confirming that the dissidents knew he (Mr Hutch) had been involved in the murder of Mr Byrne and was giving them the three guns used as a present.
Dowdall says the name Kevin refers to Kevin 'Tyrone' O'Neill, a senior dissident republican whom he says Mr Hutch spoke about the guns when he left the room.
The AK47s were subsequently seized by gardaí from IRA man Shane Rowan, whom Dowdall and Hutch met. Rowan was jailed for seven-and-a-half years.
Dowdall also said today that his use of the word "you's" refers to the Hutch gang.
The court also heard the recording of Dowdall and Mr Hutch talking about possible "peace talks" with the Kinahans to end the feud, during which Mr Hutch refers to Thomas 'Bomber' Kavanagh and David Byrne's father James 'Jemmy' Byrne.
"I hear Bomber's bird is a c**t," Hutch says. "It’s gonna be Jemmy Burns decision you know."
"And what's he like?" Dowdall asks.
"Well it'd be do you wanna lose another son Jemmy," Hutch replies.
