John Gilligan was found innocent of the murder of Veronica Guerin -- an awkward fact that some haven't let get in the way of a good story. He talks for the first time about the books that claim to tell the `truth' about him

John Gilligan gets a little sentimental as he recalls the day he was cleared, against the odds, of the murder of Veronica Guerin. "That night when I got back, E1 -- gangland wing in Portlaoise Prison -- was rocking. Every prisoner was banging his cell door for me; everybody cheered for me. They know I didn't do it."

On the outside the mood was less jubilant.

Last Wednesday, on RTE's Liveline programme hosted by Joe Duffy, caller after caller spoke indignantly about how Gilligan is alleged to have got away with so much as a criminal. They were responding to Duffy's interview with the Sunday World crime journalist and author Paul Williams, who denounced Gilligan as the most pernicious criminal in Ireland.

Williams, quoting from his new book, Evil Empire, claimed that Gilligan had put a gun in the mouth of one witness on the night before a previous criminal trial. A Gilligan associate had put a gun up to a garda's face and told him to fuck off. The same man, Brian Meehan, had masturbated in front of a female garda and got a week in prison for it. Another associate, Peter Mitchell, had complained to an interviewing detective that he was making only £30,000 a week from cannabis dealing. The callers were horrified. So was Gilligan, listening to the show in the Bunker of Portlaoise.

"It's fuckin' crazy," he says. "None of it's true... The general public do not have a legal mind about these things: [Meehan] takes his dick out in front of a Guard and gets seven days, and yet he's supposed to have got nothing for planting a gun in the face of another Guard who he then tells to `fuck off'. And Mitchell's saying he was making thirty grand a week and he also doesn't get charged."

Gilligan is equally disparaging about what he has heard about the other book published on him this month, Gangster, by John Mooney from the Sunday Times. Both books are packed with details which all point towards an inevitable conclusion, until the final chapters. The judgement of the Special Criminal Court on March 15 last, the one that had E1 rocking, was clearly a setback for the two authors.

In the eyes of the law, John Gilligan is innocent of any involvement in Guerin's murder. It's an awkward fact that has got in the way of a very good story.

Mooney and Williams have nevertheless given it their best shot, each proclaiming on his front cover that he has the inside story on Gilligan, his operation and the Guerin slaying.

Mooney's book does offer a lot of new material from Gilligan's former partners in crime from his early days and from IRA men who spent time with him in jail. Williams has produced a deluge of material from garda sources. Both are hard to put down.

But a third book, declaring Gilligan to be truly innocent of the murder, could have been just as compelling -- and believable. There are that many facts surrounding the Guerin murder to make or break the Gilligan-did-it theory.

Within hours of the 37-year-old crime journalist being shot dead at the Naas Road, Clondalkin on June 26, 1996, Gilligan became a suspect. The victim had accused him of beating her up, she had made a formal complaint to the Gardai and had named him as a criminal in the Sunday Independent. Two of his associates, Russell Warren and Charlie Bowden, were linked to the murder later that year and decided to turn state's evidence in return for an easy time on the Witness Protection Programme.

The pair said they were part of a huge cannabis network in association with Brian Meehan, Paul Ward, Patrick Eugene `Dutchie' Holland, Shay Ward, Peter Mitchell and underboss John `The Coach' Traynor. Gilligan was said to be the main man. All ten were claimed by Bowden to be in on the conspiracy to murder Guerin.

Ward, the alleged safe house provider for the Guerin killers, was jailed in 1998 for the murder, solely on the evidence of Bowden. Meehan, the alleged getaway driver, was convicted the following year. This time the court rejected Bowden -- concluding that he was a liar -- and relied instead on Russell Warren. When Gilligan was tried this year, Warren's evidence was thrown out; the judges concluded that he too was a self-serving liar.

Bowden and Warren had provided the essential intelligence information for what happened on the day of the murder, but were now found to be lying about what they had done that day.

Bowden, in particular, emerges as a man with a serious case to answer. The former top marksman in the Army loaded the Magnum .45 murder weapon, and his alibi for the day of the hit was torn apart in court. Warren, who claimed to have only tailed Guerin's car for the killers, could not have left the murder scene in the manner he described. It remains a mystery what the pair were doing that day. Is it possible that Bowden, the star witness, may in fact have been the hitman?

The Gardai still got a massive result from the Gilligan trial: he was sent down for 28 years for cannabis trafficking. In his first interview since the conviction, Gilligan told The Sunday Business Post that he was shocked when the judgement was read out. "It was amazing. The judge said `I will not convict without corroboration', by the way there's no corroboration in respect of John Dunne [the main cannabis witness], and I thought, `that's me out of it, so.' But then I found myself back in it again," he said.

Gilligan is adamant that he won his case hands down. "None of what the witnesses said tallied up. It was proven Russell Warren wasn't in Naas that day; he couldn't even point out the shop he was supposed to be in, and nobody picked him out from the ID parade...

"And what [Peter] Charlton said on the 25th day [of the trial] about `my duty is not to mislead the court', that's..." Gilligan gets annoyed about the legal niceities of the case.

He argues that two Dutch criminals, Simon Rahman and Martin Baltus, who were said to have supplied him with cannabis from 1994 to 1996, were in prison during some of this period. "Everything in the state case fell down," he claims.

"For the judges to say they had grave suspicions -- but still acquit on the murder charge -- I have to say: `can you tell me where these suspicions concern? Please tell me?' It's like if you miss a penalty in football and you kick the ball wide, you can't say, `well, it's kind of a goal'."

The highest previous sentence handed down in Ireland for drug dealing was 20 years, for the more serious offence of trafficking heroin. Gilligan commented: "For the judge then to say [when handing down the sentence], `never has anyone caused so much harm in this country from drugs', when it's cannabis, that's the joke of the century."

Legal sources say the cannabis sentence could be halved on appeal. With time already served and good behaviour -- by no means a certainty -- Gilligan could be out in eight years. He would be 57 years old by then. But he reckons it will be a lot sooner. He has already lodged an appeal, as have Brian Meehan and Paul Ward. He points out that new evidence has emerged from the trials to cast doubt on the convictions, and he says: "I have no doubt in my mind every one of us will win our cases."

In the eyes of some, Gilligan remains a suspect in the slaying. It is the implication from the new books on his life, and the underlying suggestion of countless newspaper articles. The books went further and linked him with four other hits -- the murders of Michael Crinnion, Johnny Reddin, Paddy Shanahan and Martin Cahill -- and three appalling assaults. It was also reported as fact in several papers that he planned to kidnap the Indo executive Gavin O'Reilly.

Gilligan is almost stuck for words to express his thoughts on thje alleged kidnap plot. "It's so laughable, it's just a pity it's so serious," he says.

"The first time I learnt about this kidnapping was when I read about it in the paper. I did not even know the man existed. I was in contact with the guards all of the time I was out of the country. I did not need to be involved in any kidnapping. I would have risked being denied bail and been put in custody for 10 years for attempting to pervert the course of justice -- in a case where the most I would have got if convicted was six months."

He claims the allegations were greeted with derision in the prison, where some residents may have a privileged insight into such matters. "They're all laughing their heads off about this on E1. They're rolling around the place, it's so funny. I didn't know Crinnion, Cahill wasn't an enemy or a friend, Paddy Shanahan I didn't know and Johnny Reddin was a friend -- it's just unbelievable.

"I also cannot believe they said I had stolen that batch of television sets that went to Sligo; I was in prison at the time -- I couldn't stop laughing when I listened on the radio about how I'm supposed to have threatened the cattle dealer and put a gun in his mouth; that man had made a 60-page statement saying he remembered seeing the signwriting on the van with stolen gear, but it was proven then that he couldn't read or write, and that's why the case was dropped. I'm also supposed to have broken a supplier's arms in Jessbrook, yet I had nothing to do with ordering supplies."

The Sunday Indo, Guerin's former employer, has expressed frustration about the Gilligan verdict. Gilligan claims to be equally frustrated. "Why don't they take a civil action and the Irish Independent pay the legal fees, an OJ Simpson type of action... I want the Independent to do it. Please take me on, please come on. I've no problem -- I'm innocent."

Asked who killed Guerin, he says: "I'm not saying who they are at the moment. But you won't find them in any prison in Ireland...

"The fellows who killed Veronica Guerin, they're scum, a piece of shit, scum, scum, scum."

Gilligan alleges he held back some evidence from the full trial because it would have been upsetting for the Guerin family. "The forensic evidence" -- which he says, showed his alleged assault on her did not take place -- "was held back because of her family. It wasn't the only evidence," he claims.

The state says Gilligan made a net fortune of £14 million. Gilligan says: "I haven't got a shilling -- what's crazy is that they spent £40 million on this case."

Writing about crime pays, but only modestly, if you're in the publishing game in Ireland, say industry insiders. Books on the underworld regularly top the bestseller charts. However, an author on 10 per cent net sales would normally make a maximum of £30,000, with perhaps a further £10,000 on serialisation. Should they hit the bonanza with a film, the rewards can vary from £50,000 to £250,000.

Paul Williams and John Mooney, both highly respected crime journalists, say money is not the driving inspiration. "I couldn't give a fuck. I get paid enough by the Sunday World," says Williams. "I would have made more working in McDonald's, when you consider the amount of time I put into this," claims Mooney.

Williams, an award-winning journalist with unrivalled police contacts, accuses this paper of planning a hatchet job. It claims this reporter is `too close' to Gilligan. "It's not one-dimensional at all. I knew John Traynor and interviewed other members of the gang in the past," he says.

"I am not a jury or a Guard -- my colleague got butchered. I did not do it for the money."

Mooney talks off the record for nearly an hour about what the supergrasses possibly did on the day of the slaying. On the record, he accepts that Bowden was present on the day of the hit, and says that Warren is also lying. But he too has "grave suspicions" about Gilligan.

He admits that he had to drop a lot of material because of the verdict. He confides that there are people from the film business "floating around, expressing an interest, but there's nothing concrete yet and I don't believe there will be".

The first film to date on Guerin's life, John Mackenzie's When the Sky Falls, adapted from Michael Sheridan's book, A Letter to Veronica, bombed at the box office. Disney is confident it can do a better job commercially; Jerry Bruckheimer is working on a Guerin story called Chasing the Dragon, which is due to start filming later this year.

Asked what he thinks of a Hollywood version of his life, Gilligan laughs: "Just look at When the Sky Falls, that fell big time."

In Mackenzie's film, liberties were taken. Guerin is saint-like and the people who kill her are heroin dealers (a claim which is total fiction). Mackenzie is unrepentant, arguing: "there are more lies told in documentaries than there are truths. Even if what you say is factually true, you still omit everything which contradicts your argument."

That's the problem with the John Gilligan story.