The Guardian is reporting that the Garda Síochána has questioned Anthony McIntyre, Belfast Project protagonist, in the Belfast Project case.

According to a statement published on Ed Monoley’s blog, the Irish authorities were acting pursuant to a request made by the UK authorities under the UK/Ireland MLAT. “The exchange was brief and polite and Mr McIntyre declined to answer the questions.”

I don’t have any inside information about the topic of the questioning. If I had to guess, I would guess that the questions had to do with the authenticity of the Ivor Bell tapes. It seems that the questioning was voluntary, and it’s not clear whether the Irish authorities will seek to compel McIntyre to testify. I think he’s pretty credible when he says, as he has, that he won’t testify, because he’s done pretty hard time before.