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Michael Campbell is escorted by police officers in Vilnius at a previous court sitting. Mindaugas Kulbis/AP/Press Association Images
Trial
Verdict due in Lithuanian Real IRA arms smuggling trial
Michael Campbell denies the charges. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
THE VERDICT IN the trial of a man from Co Louth accused of trying to smuggle arms for the Real IRA will be handed down by a judge in a Lithuanian court today.
Michael Campbell, from Dundalk in Co Louth, was arrested in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius in January 2008 after allegedly handing €10,000 to an undercover Lithuanian agent posing as a weapons supplier.
His arrest was part of an international sting operation aimed at incapacitating the Real IRA.
He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted although prosecutors have asked for a 16-year prison sentence. The verdict will be handed down today, according to RTÉ.
Campbell has already spent the last three-and-a-half years in a cell with three other inmates in the Lukiskes prison in Vilnius.
The 38-year-old denies the charges. His defence claimed during the course of the trial that he was the victim of entrapment by British intelligence.
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