Irish Independent July 5, 2003 McKevitt: FBI agents fly out to vet Rupert interviews  Diarmaid Mac Dermott  FBI agents attending the Special Criminal Court trial of alleged Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt flew to the US yesterday to study tapes of interviews that chief prosecution witness David Rupert had given to American journalists.  A Chicago court ordered that the journalists, Abdon Pallasch and Robert Herguth of the Chicago Sun-Times and Flynn McRoberts of the Chicago Tribune, should hand over the taped interviews given by Rupert for a possible book on his infiltration of dissident republican groups in Ireland and the US.  McKevitt's legal team had sought the tapes as part of his defence at the trial.  Yesterday, prosecuting counsel George Birmingham told the Special Criminal Court the tapes were due to be handed over to the FBI for "vetting" at 9pm Chicago time (3pm here).  Mr Birmingham said the tapes had to be studied for sensitive material by people centrally involved in the investigation and most of them are in this country.  "A team of people who have been assembled and who will work on this over the weekend will fly from Dublin," he added.  It was hoped to complete examination of the tapes by close of business on Monday and the prosecution would then have to consider the material. He would ask the court in the circumstances to defer cross-examination of Mr Rupert by McKevitt's lawyers until Wednesday, counsel said.  In a separate development, Mr Birmingham said that earlier he told the court that possible contempt action is being taken over articles by a journalist in a particular publication.  The prosecution had become aware of a specific article in a periodical and there were very serious concerns that it was a deliberate attempt to seek to influence the court, added counsel. Action would also be taken about this article.  McKevitt's counsel, Hugh Hartnett, said the defence team had constantly been writing to the State complaining about matters appearing in the press.  It was the 11th day of the trial of McKevitt (53) of Beech Park, Blackrock, Dundalk, Co Louth, accused of membership of an unlawful organisation, the Irish Republican Army, otherwise the IRA, otherwise Oglaigh na hEireann, between August 29 1999 and March 28 2001. He is also charged directing its activities.