Strabane paraplegic INLA member jailed for Cork kidnap plot

A man who is paraplegic has been jailed for three years by the Special Criminal Court in Dublin for INLA membership linked to a kidnap plot in Cork.
44-year-old Edward McGarrigle from Strabane was convicted last July of INLA membership in February 2008.
His sentencing was adjourned after McGarrigle, who has been confined to a wheelchair since 1984, fractured his leg, requiring extended medical treatment in the North.
44-year-old Eddie McGarrigle, whos in a wheelchair, 48-year-old John McCrossan of Ballycoleman Estate, Strabane and 55-year-old Neil Myles  a native of Cork but of no fixed abode, were convicted last July; McCrossan and Myles were each jailed for 4½ years.
25-year-old Gareth Dunne Clonard Road, Crumlin, and 29-year-old Gerard Kelleher of Kevin Street, Dublin, were each jailed for four years after they pleaded guilty.
Det Insp Tom Maguire told the court that McGarrigle was shot in 1984 and since then had been a paraplegic. He had 66 previous convictions, mostly for minor offences.
He was jailed for nine years in Belfast in 1993 for conspiracy to murder and was also given a suspended sentence in 2006 for unlawful possession of a firearm.
The court said there was “background evidence of a well-organised plot to carry out some criminal enterprise” against a businessman and his family in Cork. The intended target was Denis Maguire, Montenotte, Cork.
Mr Maguire returned home at 8pm on February 22nd, 2008, in the company of two gardaí. Dunne and Kelleher were on the premises and were arrested and searched.
Mr Justice Paul Butler said the appropriate sentence would be five years but, taking into account McGarrigle’s medical condition, he reduced that by two years and backdated it to July 1st, 2009.