An man accused of leaking sensitive Government information to a hostile foreign power is to be tried at the non-jury Special Criminal Court.<\/p>\n
Civil servant Yevgen McKeeffe (46), who is originally from Ukraine but has Irish citizenship, stands accused of breaking the Official Secrets Act.<\/p>\n
He was arrested in the departures area at Dublin Airport on May 28th, attempting to leave the country carrying \u20ac5,650 and a one-way ticket.<\/p>\n
The IT worker, who has lived in Ireland for 24 years, had previously changed his name by deed poll to a more Irish one.<\/p>\n
The Garda Special Detective Unit (SDU) has charged him with four offences between July 11th, 2025, and May 28th this year.<\/p>\n
The first is under the Criminal Justice (Corruption Offences) Act 2018 for unlawfully disclosing confidential information from a specific government department, which cannot be named for legal reasons.<\/p>\n
He also faces a charge of breaching the Data Protection Act alongside two counts under the Official Secrets Act for retaining official data from the same department and communicating that information, prejudicially to the safety and preservation of the State, to another person.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) directed the case would proceed on indictment at a higher level.<\/p>\n
The case resumed on Friday at Cloverhill District Court when Judge Patricia Cronin noted another development. <\/p>\n
The DPP has stated the trial will be held in the Special Criminal Court, which usually hears terrorism- or organised crime-related cases.<\/p>\n
The judge recorded that this venue was necessary because the ordinary courts were not suitable.<\/p>\n
McKeeffe appeared via video-link and has been a remand prisoner since May 30th when bail was denied. He was remanded in continuing custody to appear again at Cloverhill District Court on September 25th. <\/p>\n
Fiachra Treacy, defending, highlighted delays so far and said his client had been in custody for three months. The barrister called on prosecutors to expedite the matter.<\/p>\n
McKeeffe, an IT worker, denies the allegations. He remains suspended from work pending the outcome of the case.<\/p>\n
Reporting restrictions imposed earlier bar journalists from revealing McKeeffe\u2019s Dublin address, the government department in which he worked, the overseas country involved in the case or the information allegedly disclosed. <\/p>\n
Detective Sergeant Shay Palmer said at a previous hearing the SDU opened an intelligence-led investigation that led to McKeeffe\u2019s arrest as he was about to fly to Turkey. <\/p>\n
It was alleged the man was then to proceed \u201con to his final destination where he would meet his contact and share confidential information which had the potential of creating risk to the Irish state\u201d.<\/p>\n
At a bail hearing, it was said McKeeffe had previously travelled out of the country in 2025 under his current name, but had used another name on an earlier flight.<\/p>\n
The court heard garda\u00ed seized electronic devices and documents during a search of his home computer. <\/p>\n
His workplace was also examined and garda\u00ed seized his desktop computer. It was claimed he sent information in the form of documents, pictures or videos to a \u201chandler\u201d in a foreign jurisdiction via the Telegram app on his mobile phone.<\/p>\n
Palmer said McKeeffe received payments in a foreign currency equivalent to \u20ac250\u2013\u20ac260 for his efforts, which were lodged into McKeeffe\u2019s mother\u2019s account. <\/p>\n
Given the nature of the country involved, it was not possible to determine whether he received further sums in that nation.<\/p>\n
The court heard he had signed the Official Secrets Act when he started his employment.<\/p>\n
Palmer also raised significant flight risk concerns.<\/p>\n
The court heard that the accused, who came to Ireland because he was gay and faced discrimination beforehand, had used four other variations of names. <\/p>\n
The single man held an Irish passport and two other non-Irish travel documents, but had been in Ireland lawfully since 2002 and had progressed to citizenship.<\/p>\n
Defence counsel said the accused had changed his name to a more Irish one and he had ties to this country through his job, friends and a mortgage on his home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An man accused of leaking sensitive Government information to a hostile foreign power is to be tried at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,73168,52,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,55624,7,8],"class_list":["post-661491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-criminal-courts","tag-dublin","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-special-criminal-court","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117174951320163096","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}