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The trial of the man accused of the murder of undercover soldier Captain Robert Nairac has been shown a recording of an interview he gave to the BBC.
In the recording, 60-year-old Kevin Crilly admitted being in the Three Steps Inn on the night the Grenadier Guardsman went missing in May 1977, but denied being “involved with the IRA”.
However, Crilly — speaking with an American accent after having lived in the USA for 27 years following the murder — claimed he had been “in the wrong place at the wrong time”.
He said he “regretted” his involvement, which he described as “minimal”.
Belfast Crown Court also heard Crilly, from Lower Foughill Road, Jonesborough, Co Armagh, tell the BBC reporters that he expected to be imprisoned for his involvement, but that he was “just hoping that I don't go to jail”.
Initially Crilly denied being the person the reporters where looking for, claiming to be Declan Power. He said he knew nothing about the disappearance of |Captain Nairac, whose killers |suspected he was an undercover SAS soldier.
However, when asked if the soldier's two sisters deserved closure after 30 years, Crilly replied: “Ah, yes, everybody does.”
However, he went on to tell |the reporters: “I don't have anything to say, sorry ... I don’t know anything.”
Crilly eventually admitted that he left Northern Ireland following Captain Nairac's disappearance and had been living in the US “under my original name”, Declan Power, which he later said was his “birth name”.
Asked if he regretted his involvement, he said: “Indeed I do.” Admitting he was in the Dromintee bar on the border that evening, Crilly told the reporters that there was “just a bit of a battle outside, that's the first I knew about it and the next thing I knew about it was the next day when the s*** hit the fan”.
Crilly also admitted going to get a man called Townson, whom the prosecution claim was the gunman, and that he later left the country as he “figured I was going to go to jail”.
Claiming that his involvement was “minimal”, Crilly said he'd heard a “hundred different stories” about what had happened |to Captain Nairac's body, including that it had been taken to a meat factory.
He said he did not know anybody involved, appealing to the reporters: “I really don't know, I wasn't involved, I wasn't involved with the IRA, I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
He told the reporters that he was “waiting on a knock on the door” from police, and that eventually he was “just going to have to go with the flow, do my time, that's it, get it over with”.
He added later that he would let the police come and get him “if they want me”.
