A former minister of State and deputy PD leader, Mr Michael Keating, was accused yesterday of threatening to put a businessman in a wheelchair and harm his children unless he took part in a multi-million-pound tax fraud.
A London court heard Mr Daniel O'Connell (46) of Limerick, claim the former lord mayor of Dublin used mafia-style intimidation tactics to terrify him into submission.
Mr Keating was allegedly involved in a computer-chip fraud with Mr O'Connell, who is on trial for allegedly defrauding the British taxpayer of £20 million. Mr O'Connell claims he was innocent and ran a computer company for Mr Keating because he feared for his life.
He said when he tried to back out of the agreement in 1996, Mr Keating called him to a meeting in Limerick and turned up flanked by two silent men.
Mr O'Connell said Mr Keating "blew a fuse and threatened me . . . He told me I would be in a wheelchair. He said, `We know where you live. We know where your wife and children are'. He said, `Your girlfriend will end up with a lot of stitches in her face'."
Mr O'Connell is accused of conning London suppliers of Intel Pentium II processors into believing they were being sold for VAT-free export to the Republic, when in fact they were being sold to his network of companies in England. Mr Keating's company, Irish Semi-Conductors, is alleged to be among a number of firms which backed the operation.
Mr Keating was first elected to the Dail in 1977 and was a TD with Fine Gael and the PDs until he retired from national politics in 1989, a year in which he wrote a thriller called Day Of Reckoning, launched by the taoiseach at the time, Mr Charles Haughey.
In February 1998 a claim was made in the High Court that he was a director of a company being investigated by the Criminal Assets Bureau regarding alleged drugs money-laundering. Mr Keating denied the claim.
