A man, who claimed to be a CIA operative and has 150 aliases, has been jailed for a month after a judge convicted him of a public order offence when he threatened to kill a garda and dance on his head after gardaí were called to a disturbance in Co Cork earlier this month.
Fahd Ayat (42), of Grove Park, Rathmines, Dublin, who also calls himself James Mack, among a host of other aliases, denied that he had engaged in threatening and abusive behaviour towards Garda Ray Prendeville at Strawberry Hill in Monkstown in Co Cork on the night of September 4th last.
But after hearing evidence from both Garda Prendeville and the defendant, who said he wished to be addressed in court as James Mack, Judge Colm Roberts found him guilty of the offence and sentenced him to a month in jail, backdated to when he first went into custody on September 4th.
Judge Roberts said he accepted Garda Prendeville’s evidence about what occurred at Strawberry Hill on the night in question whereas he found the defendant’s evidence to be “grandiose, inconsistent, unreliable and particularly opportunistic in his allegations about the guards”.
Mark O'Connell: The mystery is not why we Irish have responded to Israel’s barbarism. It’s why others have not
The music of 2024: Our critics’ verdicts on the best albums and acts of the year
‘One Christmas Day my brother set me on fire’: seven writers spill their most bizarre Yuletide yarns
Kellie Harrington fought hard for the dream ending she well deserved
Mack had told a previous court sitting that he was living at the American embassy in Dublin, was a CIA operative and was CEO of an international company with assets of €15 billion, having high level military contracts in the United States, France and Israel.
And he claimed that a couple in Monkstown owed his company $15 million for high level security services and that on the date he visited them, they were going to give him the deeds to a property in Monkstown as security for the alleged debt.
Garda Prendeville told how he and a colleague were called to the scene by neighbours of the couple and he found the defendant in the driveway of the house where he was in dispute with the man, but he agreed to step outside on to the roadway while Garda Prendeville spoke to the couple.
However, Garda Prendeville said that when he went to speak to the defendant, he became quite erratic and aggressive and threatened him. “He said he would f***ing kill me and dance on my f***ing head,” said Garda Prendeville.
‘I have snipers’
Cross-examined by the defendant’s solicitor, Frank Buttimer, who said his client would allege he was assaulted by gardaí who struck him with a baton. Garda Prendeville denied any ill treatment of the defendant.
Mack took the stand and denied that he had engaged in any threatening or abusive towards gardaí and he alleged that gardaí had banged his head against a wall even though his earlier instructions to Mr Buttimer had been that he had been struck by gardaí with a baton in the ribs.
Asked by Judge Roberts if what Garda Prendeville was saying was untrue, Mack said that he didn’t want to say that Garda Prendeville was lying as “being part of a higher law enforcement agency, I’m not in the business of ruining another member’s career — what happened, happened”.
Cross-examined by Sgt Pat Lyons, Mack said that “I have snipers and I can take out anybody anywhere in the world” and “we are the intelligence service, we know everything” and he could start digging up information on people if he so wished.
After Judge Roberts convicted Mack, Sgt Lyons said the defendant had 26 convictions, most recently for a similar offence of engaging in threatening behaviour in Dublin while there were also some outstanding warrants and he asked for a remand on those warrants to the Criminal Courts of Justice.
