An Irish business executive has testified about his abduction and torture by a gang that carved the letters of his company on his chest, a crime that shocked Ireland.
Kevin Lunney told the special criminal court in Dublin on Thursday that the man who used a blade to slice the letters QIH into his skin told him it was to make sure he would remember the ordeal.
The 52-year-old director of Quinn Industrial Holdings was giving evidence in the trial of four men who have pleaded not guilty to falsely imprisoning him and causing him harm on 17 September 2019.
Lunney was abducted outside his home near Derrylin in County Fermanagh, put in a car boot and moved to a horsebox across the border. His attackers broke his leg, sliced his fingernails and face with a knife and doused him in bleach.
The attack was the most serious in a five-year campaign of intimidation targeting the companies and directors that now control a business portfolio built up by Seán Quinn, formerly Ireland’s richest man. A local parish priest compared those behind the campaign to mafia-style “untouchables”.
Lunney told the court he asked the gang members not to cut off his fingers and promised to do what they wanted. He said he was told that he and three other directors were to resign and to “drop all charges and injunctions”, an apparent reference to two defamation cases, one in Northern Ireland, one in the Irish Republic.
“I said a number of times: ‘Yes I will and I’ll let the others know, just don’t kill me, I’ll do whatever you want,’” he said.
The four accused are Luke O’Reilly, 67, from County Cavan, Darren Redmond, 27, and Alan O’Brien, 40, both from Dublin, and a fourth man who cannot be named for legal reasons.
Lunney, a father of six, said he initially fought back and tried to resist abduction before being forced into a car boot, with one gang member saying: “We want to talk to you. We’re not going to kill you, we want to talk to you.”
One gang member told Lunney he had been watched for six weeks and that the gang knew details of his family’s movement.
The gang poured a liquid on to his hands. “I knew it was bleach. I could feel it burning my fingers. I could smell it was bleach.”
After a blow to Lunney’s leg, one gang member asked: “Did it snap?” He said yes, but the gang was not convinced, so struck again until the leg broke. He was also hit another 12 to 20 times on his right side, being told “You’ll resign” with each blow. Lunney was then cut in the face with a Stanley knife “from ear to chin, right to left”, he told the court.
The trial is expected to last 12 weeks.
