Lynn tells court of witnessing prisoner beheading in Brazil

Former solicitor Michael Lynn has instructed his multi-million euro theft demo that although in jail awaiting extradition from Brazil he saw a prisoner beheaded by other inmates.

Mr Lynn ongoing offering proof at Dublin Circuit Criminal Courtroom on Thursday, with the previous solicitor also describing striving to make the non-Irish facet of his residence and advancement organization. He described entertaining bankers, offering as instance his connection with Maurice Aherne, who labored in lending with AIB. He said that he compensated for flights and hotels for Mr Aherne, and a daughter of Mr Aherne, to take a look at Portugal and Hungary.

“Bankers expected advantages in type,” he told the court docket. “The way enterprise was carried out . . . They [the bankers] observed you had been earning cash and they needed some in change.”

He was asked if financial institution officials acquired apartments from him and Judge Nolan intervened.

“You are expressing personal bankers received money from you or your firms, directly from you and not through their lender?” he asked.

“Absolutely choose,” replied Mr Lynn, including that, in 2022, that may appear odd.

“But during the Celtic Tiger,” stated Mr Lynn, “I was in my 30s and you have been vying for posture with the banking institutions. When I seem back, you question who was driving on the coat tails of who.”

Mr Lynn described what life was like in a Brazilian prison soon after his arrest in August 2013 in Recife, a coastal metropolis in northeast Brazil.

The jail where he was held was beside a dump – “a extremely huge dump with rats so big even the cats ran away from them”, he instructed defence barrister Paul Comiskey-O’Keeffe, BL.

Mr Lynn mentioned that prisons in Brazil had been basically operate by the inmates.

“When I went in, the initially three nights I was in a very small cell shared with 30 other fellas,” he explained. “That was type of a holdover prison. You are not given any bowls to try to eat [from] or utensils to consume [with].”

In the jail in which he was detained, he explained he was moved to a part of the complicated in which they held folks who had a diploma, this kind of as “lawyers and accountants”.

Specific prisoners operate the prison, he claimed, and were given a gun and what he described as “large swords”.

“It’s like something from Activity of Thrones,” he explained to Choose Martin Nolan, introducing that violence was commonplace.

“There were being breakdowns, there were rebellions,” he said. “I noticed folks becoming killed. I observed once a decapitation of a young man whose only sin was that he was gay. I never necessarily mean [being gay] was a sin but that’s how it was viewed more than there. It is really macho and all that malarkey above there.”

Mr Lynn of Millbrook Court docket, Purple Cross, Co Wicklow, is on demo accused of the theft of about €27 million from 7 monetary institutions.

He has pleaded not responsible to 21 counts of theft in Dublin concerning Oct 23rd, 2006 and April 20th, 2007.

It is the prosecution circumstance that Mr Lynn attained multiple home loans on the identical homes in a predicament wherever financial institutions had been unaware that other institutions ended up also furnishing finance.

Unsuccessful to show up

On his fourth working day becoming questioned by defence counsel, Mr Lynn mentioned he 1st went to London after he unsuccessful to surface at the Significant Court docket in Dublin in 2007.

Prior to that, he mentioned he experienced meetings with bankers and with Grant Thornton to analyse his belongings in Ireland and in other places “to see if we could obtain a business solution” to his money problems.

He reported he was advised that if he went bankrupt in the Point out, he was experiencing bankruptcy for 12 a long time.

He claimed he talked to solicitors and to Michael Fingleton, then main government of the Irish Nationwide Setting up Modern society, and to Seán FitzPatrick of Anglo Irish Bank.

“They ended up very concerned, and I was also pretty involved in phrases of myself owning a long term,” reported Mr Lynn.

He reported he experienced a residence rented in London and he could go bankrupt in the United kingdom for a shorter time period than in Ireland, so he went there.

He mentioned he hoped that it would “allow things to settle and take care of themselves”.

The court listened to that in February 2008, Mr Lynn moved to Portugal and ongoing residing there with his wife Brid Murphy until June 2011. He explained to the court he experienced initial gone to Brazil in 2005 since there was a “natural enterprise connection among Brazil and Portugal”.

He explained his accountant mate in Portugal introduced him to a superior buddy in Sao Paulo, where by he lived with his spouse for eight months.

Hitherto, the pair experienced been unable to have young children despite IVF procedure, the courtroom heard. But in Sao Paulo he reported they had been more privileged and had a boy.

Mr Lynn reported they did not like the sizing of the city, on the other hand, and so moved to Recife, a more compact coastal city exactly where, with buyers, he grew to become associated in property in close by Cabo de Santo Agostinho.

Wage

He stated he obtained a wage from this and also earned income from educating English.

When he was arrested, his spouse was seven months pregnant, he told the court. He resisted extradition to begin with, he reported.

“I required to give time for Brid to give birth,” he advised Mr Comiskey-O’Keeffe.

He explained he hoped to get bail and used time with his kids but bail was denied. On the other hand, he said conjugal prison visits were being permitted and they had two far more youngsters in Brazil.

“Brazilian prisons are pretty challenging for everybody,” he said. “Conjugal visits exist to retain peace in what is primarily a war zone.”

The trial proceeds.