This article is from page 11 of the 2008-06-24 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 11 JPG
THE trial heard that the lethal toxin ricin was found in Essam Eid’s cell in Limerick prison.
Detective Garda Jarlath Fahy told the court on Friday that he received intelligence which led him to suspect that the toxin was hidden somewhere in Mr Eid’s cell, where he had been held since his arrest following the burglary of the Howard family busi- ness in September 2006.
At the prison, he asked Mr Eid if he
had a pair of contact lenses. “He told me he had contact lenses but he had lost them about two months after his arrival at Limerick Prison,” he said. He said that Mr Eid told him he still had the lens case, which was stored in a box under his bed. Commandant Peter Daly of the army Explosives Ordinance Dis- posal division was in charge of the search of the cell. He said he had been a UN weapons inspector in Iraq in 1998 and was familiar with the toxin ricin. He said he had found
the contact lens case in a box under Mr Eid’s bed and handed it to his colleague for testing.
Retired Commandant PJ Butler said that he tested the contact lens case, using a RAMP machine (Rapid Analyte Measurement Platform).
He said the first test on the contact lens case was spoiled but the second produced a positive result. He said this test produced only a preliminary result and a further confirmation was eX cy-A
The court heard from several ana-
lytical chemists from LGC Limited in Teddington, Middlesex in the UK. The manager of the facility, Stephen Kippen, explained that ricin was the third most deadly toxin known to man and was fatal if ingested, inhaled or injected. He said it was a biological toxin derived from the beans of the castor oil plant.
He said there was a “sheen” on the inside of one of the cups on the case TbACGUCOrc1BUOTSMmMOt-TMmSO)oats1 OD NNTSMmsr-le menu lere! onto it. He had irrigated the lens case using a sterile saline solution to dis-
lodge any material.
He then made two separate samples from the solution used to wash out the cup and lid of either side of the case which, together with a control sample of the buffer solution, were sent to a sister laboratory for testing.
He said the remainder of the sam- ple left over for testing had been re- served and was being stored at LGC Ltd. He said that it was not known how stable ricin was and it was not known if the samples were still vi- able.