Verdict due in Carroll murder trial
A verdict is due on Friday in the trial of two men accused of murdering Constable Stephen Carroll.
The policeman was shot dead by the Continuity IRA as he attended an emergency call-out in Craigavon, Co Armagh, in March 2009.
Former Sinn Féin councillor Brendan McConville, 40, and John Paul Wootton, 20, have denied involvement during a nine-week, no jury trial at Belfast Crown Court.
Constable Carroll, a 48-year-old long-serving officer, was the first PSNI member to be killed by dissident republicans since it was reformed from the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
He died of a single gunshot wound to the head as he sat in a police car responding to a 999 call in the Co Armagh town, where a brick had been thrown through the window of a house in Lismore Manor.
The prosecution claim he was lured to his death.
It happened two days after two British soldiers were murdered in a Real IRA gun attack outside Massereene army barracks in Co Antrim.
McConville, of Aldervale, Tullygally in Craigavon, and Wootton, from Collingdale in nearby Lurgan, both declined to give evidence in their own defence.
Wootton also faces charges attempting to obtain information likely to be of use to terrorists.
The court heard that in the lead up to the shooting the defendant had approached an individual, known as Witness E, to ask for the address of another policeman.
During the trial, Wootton’s mother – 39-year-old Sharon Wootton, with the same address as her son – plead guilty to obstructing the police investigation into the murder.
She admitted to removing computer equipment from their house ahead of police searches.
Judge Lord Justice Paul Girvan took three weeks to assess the evidence ahead of delivering his reserved judgments.
Constable Carroll’s widow Kate has been almost ever present in the public gallery of the court during the high-profile trial.
