An Indian-origin lawyer based in Northern Ireland has been sentenced to 10 years in jail after pleading guilty to inciting murder and perverting the course of justice.
The charges against Manmohan 'Johny' Sandhu arose from the attempted murder of a taxi driver and the murders of two men during a power struggle between the loyalist paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and Loyalist Volunteer Force in 2005.
Forty four-year-old Sandhu was sentenced to 10 years in jail at the Belfast Crown Court where Judge Deeny quoted from secretly taped interviews in which Sandhu commented that "dead men can't talk".
Sandhu was described in court as an "enthusiastic gang member".
Sandhu, who allegedly incited UVF suspects to kill, stood with his head bowed in court, reports from Belfast said.
He had earlier denied the charges and fought to prevent the evidence being used against him until his trial last week, but he later pleaded guilty.
Sandhu was arrested in January 2006 on the basis of his taped conversations with loyalist paramilitary clients at the serious crime suite in Antrim police station during 2005 and 2006.
Justice Deeny told the India-born legal representative, "Manmohan Sandhu, it was a wicked thing to incite men of violence to murder an innocent man."
He said, "There was a very grave breach of trust by the accused as a solicitor to the Supreme Court of Northern Ireland given privileged access to his clients in a police station."
The Law Society swiftly suspended Sandhu after he pleaded guilty and would now consider his future membership of the profession.
Judge Deeny said, "It seems to me quite unrealistic to expect that a man who has offended in this way could possibly be allowed to practice as a solicitor again. It is a pernicious and dangerous abuse of that right for a solicitor to go beyond the role of legal adviser."
