Two ex-Anglo Irish Bank executives convicted of fraud

DUBLIN (Reuters) - An Irish court on Wednesday convicted two former executives of the failed Anglo Irish Bank of conspiracy to defraud investors, depositors and lenders in the run-up to the country's banking crisis.

Willie McAteer, 65, the bank's former finance director, and John Bowe, 52, its ex-head of capital markets, had pleaded not guilty to the charges. The jury will resume deliberations on Thursday relating to charges against former Irish Life and Permanent executives Denis Casey and Peter Fitzpatrick.

All four men were accused of conspiring together and with others to mislead investors by setting up a 7.2 billion euro (£5.5 billion) circular transaction scheme between March and September 2008 to bolster Anglo's balance sheet.

Irish Life placed the deposits via a non-banking subsidiary in the run-up to Anglo's financial year-end to allow its rival to categorise them as customer deposits, which are regarded as more secure, rather than as deposits from another bank.

Lawyers for the accused had said their motivation in authorising the deal was the so-called "green jersey" agenda, the financial regulator's request for Irish banks to support one another as the financial crisis worsened.

No senior Irish banker has to date been jailed since the banking crisis forced Dublin to seek a three-year international bailout in 2010.

Scandal-ridden Anglo, described by Judge Martin Nolan during the 84-day trial as "probably the most reviled institution in the state", was nationalised months later and was into liquidation in 2013.

Its failure cost taxpayers 30 billion euros, equivalent to around 15 percent of Ireland's annual economic output and almost half the 64 billion euros Dublin had to pump into its banks to save the entire sector from collapse.

Irish Life and Permanent was broken up during the restructuring of the sector and its banking arm, permanent tsb, remains under 75-percent state ownership.

(Writing by Padraic Halpin; Editing by Gareth Jones)