A secret, "liquid gold" recording captures a US Special Agent "unashamedly" coercing a suspect to put Aaron Brady "in the frame" for murdering a Garda and was wrongly withheld from the trial jury, a barrister has told the Court of Appeal.
Brady, previously of New Road, Crossmaglen, Co Armagh was jailed in 2020 for a minimum of 40 years for the murder of Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe and is bidding to overturn his conviction in a six-day hearing before the Court of Appeal.
On the third day of the hearing before the three-judge appeals court Michael O'Higgins SC, representing Brady, said the trial court erred in refusing to allow the defence introduce into evidence the tape recording of a conversation between another suspect and Special Agent Matt Katske of the US Department of Homeland Security.
Mr O'Higgins submitted that the tape came as near to "suborning" [inducing them to commit perjury] a witness as it is likely to get. Counsel said the defence wanted and needed to get the tape into evidence in the case and it should have gone before the factfinders of the trial to show there was a significant deficit in the State's case.
The lawyer said the trial judge had been presented with something which was "virtually unprecedented", where a law officer "unabashed and unashamedly" turned the screw to nominate Brady for an offence with a mandatory minimum sentence of 40 years and that Suspect A had been "poked and prodded" to provide that.
Mr O'Higgins previously argued at trial that the jury needed to be aware that Special Agent Katske behaved in this way so that when they looked at the evidence of Daniel Cahill "they will know what they are dealing with".
Mr Cahill gave evidence that Brady told him on three occasions that he had shot a garda but the defence claimed that Mr Cahill may have been pressurised by Homeland Security with the threat that he would be deported if he refused to give a statement to Gardaí.
