'Bombshell world exclusive' was neither a bombshell nor exclusive

Having claimed on 9 April that his 'revelations' concerning Patrick Holland were a 'world exclusive' and a 'bombshell', Paul Williams acknowledged on 16 April the 'world Exclusive' 'bombshell' was neither a world exclusive nor a bombshell. By Vincent Browne

In the Sunday World of 16 April, the newspaper's crime correspondent, Paul Williams, discloses that the "World Exclusive" "bombshell" revelations of the previous week, were not a "world exclusive" for the Sunday World, nor were they "bombshell" revelations, as the information had been published previously – by himself.

The "World Exclusive" "bombshell" revelations were that an alleged girlfriend of John Gilligan, Carol Rooney, had told the Garda she had repeatedly witnessed discussions between John Gilligan and Patrick Holland (recently released from prison and the person allegedly who fired the shots at Veronica Guerin, murdering her on 26 June 1996) at which plans for the murder of Veronica Guerin were discussed. The "World Exclusive" also revealed that in the hours following the murder of Veronica Guerin she overhead a telephone discussion between Gilligan and Holland during which, allegedly, Holland gave Gilligan an account of the murder.

In a response to what was published in Village last week, Paul Williams acknowledges the material was previously published in a book by another crime reporter, John Mooney (Gangsters), but also reported by himself years ago in a book, Evil Empire.

In a further comment on the Village story of last week, Williams wrote there was an attempt to discredit Carol Rooney's statement (to gardaí) "by attributing motives to her without a shred of evidence to back them up".

Village had made the point that even if the gardaí were saying Carol Rooney had made a statement to them, there was no way of knowing whether any such statement was made voluntarily or whether she had ever made the statement attributed to her. We made no assumption concerning Carol Rooney's motivation. Also in that 16 April issue, Paul Williams, in an article headed "The Conman and the Killer", alleged Patrick Holland's lawyer, the Italian lawyer Giovanni di Stefano, was not qualified to act as a lawyer either in Italy or in any EU country. It further alleged di Stefano had been involved in fraud.

In apparent retaliation, Giovanni di Stefano has published a personalised attack on Paul Williams, on his (the lawyer's) website. Mr di Stefano claims he was emailed information about Paul Williams by gardaí and journalists in Ireland. He further claims he was sent photographs authenticating some of the material published.

One of the entries in a section of the website called "Diary", claims to come from a garda ("a famous detective"), who observed Paul Williams in Coleman's public house in Rathgar, Dublin. Another entry claims Williams was in a Dublin restaurant, Borsalino's.

Yet another report claims gardaí stopped a well-known criminal near the KCR health club in Dublin and at the time this criminal was planning on attacking Paul Williams. The "Diary" expresses the hope that "those gardaí, judges and political echelons who allowed an innocent man (Patrick Holland) to remain in jail and be falsely accused of murder can go and confess" (in the context the suggestion is they "confess" to a priest). The "diary" names two retired gardaí who it claims "stitched" up Patrick Holland.

The "diary" refers to a lie-detector test, which Patrick Holland allegedly underwent, but does not disclose the results of such test. The style of the "diary" is discursive and refers to other cases involving Giovanni di Stefano, amid references to his dog ("Rufus"), his mother and religious ceremonies. One of these other clients is Gary Glitter, the British pop star of the 1960s, who was recently accused of sex crimes in Vietnam.