http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/n...d-31391395.html

Johnny Adair murder conspirator boasted to his girlfriend: I’m trying to get a war started.

Irishman Antoin Duffy, who boasted of "doing the IRA proud", was the driving force behind a plot to murder former loyalist leader Johnny 'Mad Dog' Adair.

Duffy was passionate about a united Ireland and believed that Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness were "traitors" who had sold out the republican cause by agreeing to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

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The jury heard that Duffy planned his campaign to murder Adair and his former right hand man Sam McCrory from his cell in Castle Huntly open prison in Scotland. One of the books found in his cell was a copy of Adair's autobiography Mad Dog.

Duffy believed Adair and McCrory were responsible for ordering the murders of dozens of innocent Catholics during the Troubles and should die.

He wanted to shoot McCrory dead first using a pistol or revolver and then quickly target Adair using an AK-47 assault rifle he called "the big fella".

Every few weeks while on home leave from Castle Huntly back to his flat in Old Castle Road, Glasgow, Duffy sprang into action, meeting, phoning and texting criminal associates in a bid to get his hands on weapons.

In a bugged conversation he was heard boasting to girlfriend Stacey McAllister: "I'm trying to get a war started and get as many guns and explosives as I can."

Duffy enlisted his cousin Martin Hughes as his right hand man and recruited fellow prisoner, Ayr man Paul Sands - a Facebook friend of McCrory - who knew McCrory's daily routine.

Duffy is heard to tell co-accused Hughes in a bugged conversation: "We can stand with the best of them in history. This is the f***ing bastard that killed 50 of our people."

Hughes replied: "Have to get him before he gets ours."

But the conspirators didn't know MI5 had got wind of their plans and had authorised the bugging of Duffy's flat. Hughes' car also had a bug placed in it and undercover police followed them.

The paperwork for the surveillance was so secretive that there is no signature on it. The document on MI5-headed notepaper has a number where the signature would normally be. The surveillance began in December 12, 2012, but when MI5's authorisation period ended they handed the operation to Police Scotland and no MI5 operatives gave evidence at the 10-week trial of Duffy, Hughes and Sands at the High Court in Glasgow.

Duffy and Hughes were also bugged as they drove in Hughes' Mercedes jeep from Glasgow to the Ayrshire home of former UDA and UFF boss McCrory, on October 1, 2013.

They met Sands in Ayrshire and he directed them to right outside McCrory's house.

Sands said: "There are so many places you could hit this guy. It's unbelievable. I mean I could go and tap his door right now and we could probably put him in the boot if three of us could manage it, know what I mean?"

Duffy then said: "A sawn-off and a revolver as the back-up."

As the jeep approaches the street in which McCrory lives, Sands is heard to say: "This is the road he walks every single day. You can't go wrong. It is a straight road."

There is then a discussion about cameras at a nearby school and shops and the best vantage points to get their target.

Duffy goes on: "I just need a quick look. I almost hit him a couple of years ago."

He then added: "We'll just drive up to him and f***in jump out and blast him. In his ear. There's an AK that could possibly be getting made available for us with armour-piercing rounds. The thing about that is that's it's too f***in high profile for this first."

Duffy said he wanted to kill McCrory first and thought that using an AK-47 on him would lead to Adair running scared.

Duffy's cellmate in Castle Huntly, Edward McVeigh (27), revealed that Duffy hated Adair and talked of shooting him as he walked his dog or trained at the gym.

He said that Duffy was a republican sympathiser who claimed he was a member of the Real IRA.

Paul Kearney, prosecuting, said Duffy intended to pull the trigger himself. Mr McVeigh added: "Antoin had a bitterness and hate because the British ruled the north of Ireland and British soldiers were still occupying the north. He wanted a united Ireland."

The court heard Duffy was so charismatic that he persuaded McVeigh, who was from a fiercely loyalist background, to convert to Catholicism.

Duffy, who was serving a five-year sentence for having a gun in a Glasgow nightclub, also used his time in jail to contact people who might be able to source guns.

He, Hughes and Sands were detained on October 23, 2013, the same day that police raided a flat in Green Road, Paisley and found an AK-47 in a locked cupboard in the common close outside the flat, hidden under Christmas decorations and an old Hoover.

The flat was being rented by co-accused Gordon Brown's wife's brother, who denied any knowledge of the assault rifle.

Police believe that Duffy was just weeks away from carrying out his plan to murder Adair and McCrory. He was just waiting to get his hands on weapons.

Duffy even approached Celtic star Anthony Stokes in the Brazen Head pub on September 1, asking him to get his father to pass a message on to someone in Ireland to obtain weapons.

Regulars reacted with fury to this and Duffy was thrown out of the pub and seen jumping up and down with rage out in the street by undercover police.

In evidence, McCrory admitted that the killing of him and Adair would be "huge scalps for dissident republican groups".

Adair said that in October 2013 he returned from holiday to be told by police that his life was in danger from dissident republicans and to step up his security.

He added: "All that was supposed to be over, but from their point of view I would see myself as a target as a leader of loyalism."

When asked who he thought would target him replied: "All dissident republicans."

Adair, who had been brigadier of C Company UFF in Belfast's Shankill Road, told the court he was now a man of peace and that republican dissidents, whom he described as fools and criminals, were shooting soldiers on the streets of Northern Ireland.

Mr Kearney said: "Do you consider yourself as irrelevant to Northern Ireland politics now?"

Adair replied: "Yes, but I still get visited by police telling me my life is in danger from dissident republicans and told to step up my security."

Asked if his group was responsible for the murder of up to 40 Catholics, he said: "It has been reported as that."

http://news.stv.tv/west-central/1324809-...ir-and-mccrory/

Loyalists and Republicans 'puzzled by plot to kill Adair and McCrory.

Loyalist and Republican dissidents are both "bewildered" about the plot to kill Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair and Sam "Skelly" McCrory.

Three men were found guilty of a murder plot to gun down the two former Loyalist paramilitary leaders after a nine-week trial at the High Court in Glasgow.

Anton Duffy, Martin Hughes and Paul Sands were tracked for ten months by security services and police as they planned the assassinations.

However, one author who wrote a book on the UDA, has said news of the plot has caused "puzzlement" on both sides of the divide in Northern Ireland.

Henry McDonald, co-author of Inside the heart of Loyalist Terror, said: "There is bewilderment among Loyalists about what this was all about.

"I was surprised any Republican dissident group would want to carry out a major operation in Scotland.

"It's highly unusual and there puzzlement about who these people were among dissident Republicans in Derry."

Asked what the ramifications would have been if the plot was successful, Mr McDonald said: "The Loyalist community here in Ireland would have seen that as a new shift by the Republican movement.

"If it was successful that would have been a major shift, even though they (Adair and McCrory) were forced out of Belfast at gunpoint by their own comrades.

"Republican dissident groups have avoided deliberately targeting Loyalists, it has not been a policy of Republican groups so who knows, there would have perhaps been retaliation."

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http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/0724/716942-lurgan-bomb-arrests/

Five arrested over Lurgan bomb blast.

Five men have been arrested by detectives investigating the attempted murder of police in a bomb blast in Northern Ireland.

Dissident republicans were blamed for last weekend's attack in Lurgan, Co Armagh, when police were lured to a bomb in the Victoria Street area, which was then detonated.

Police said the five suspects, aged 28, 31 and 36, and two 46-year-olds, were detained in Co Armagh over the last 24 hours.

PSNI officers were called to the scene near a cross-border railway line after a phone call to the Samaritans last Saturday claiming a device aimed at a police patrol during the early hours had failed to explode.

Homes were evacuated and a hoax device, which was not capable of detonating, was discovered.

But during a follow-up search by police to declare the area safe a suspected anti-personnel bomb exploded.
No-one was injured in the explosion.
The suspects have been taken to the Serious Crime Suite at Antrim police station for questioning.

http://www.herald.ie/news/best-pals-who-...s-31427713.html

Best pals who grew up robbing cars for the notorious Westies gang are now sworn enemies
The legacy of one of Dublin's most violent drug gangs is causing mayhem and murder to this day, despite the bloody deaths of many of the key players in the outfit.

They were childhood pals who grew up together and joined Dublin's most notorious crime gang.

Now Jason 'Jay' O'Connor (37) and David 'Gully' Goulding (38) hate each other's guts.
Gardai are this summer more worried about the bitter feud than any other gangland war.
It has already led to one man being shot dead in west Dublin.
Armed detectives have had to mount top secret operations to keep the main protagonists alive as death threats and counter threats have been flying.
O'Connor and Goulding have known each other since they were children in Clonsilla.
The pair linked up with the Westies gang when they were teenagers and built up reputations 20 years ago as prolific car thieves.
The infamous mob - headed up by gangsters Shane Coates and Stephen Sugg - terrorised Dublin in the early days of the Celtic Tiger boom.
The growing use of cocaine by Ireland's increasingly affluent middle class meant that the gangs were making tens of thousands of euro each week.
While building up a reputation as the best car thieves in Dublin, O'Connor and Goulding grew close to another major player on the crime scene, Baldoyle-based drugs trafficker David 'Babyface' Lindsay.
Given the scale of hatred between the pair, it now seems like a very long time ago that O'Connor and Goulding were partners in crime as integral members of the Westies.
Their dispute has its roots in the disintegration of the gang.
Sugg and Coates were forced to flee Ireland for Spain in 2003 because of the heat they were getting from gardai.
When they left, a deadly vacuum was created.
A row broke out over money and turf between Lindsay's Coolock-based gang and two criminal brothers - Andrew 'Madser' and Mark Glennon.
Jason O'Connor sided with the Glennons while David Goulding took Babyface's side and the dispute became increasingly nasty.
Bernard Sugg (23), Stephen's younger brother, was gunned down in 2003.
Buried
Meanwhile, Shane Coates (21) and Stephen Sugg (27) were shot dead in Spain in 2004 and buried in concrete under a warehouse.
Their bodies were not found for almost three years.
The rivals of Coates and Sugg, Andrew (30) and Mark Glennon (32), were themselves murdered in 2005.
The situation intensified further when 'Babyface' Lindsay was involved in a brutal attack on O'Connor in which he sliced him up with a knife after storming his west Dublin home.
Lindsay was later tortured and murdered in 2008.
It is suspected that gangland serial killer Eric 'Lucky' Wilson carried out the murder on the orders of crime boss Michael 'Micka' Kelly. It is believed that O'Connor blamed Goulding for the knife attack at his home.
O'Connor was later taken under the wing of a veteran southside gang boss.
Amid the ongoing feud, O'Connor is spending most of his time travelling between Ireland and Spain as armed detectives closely monitor his movements.
Goulding meanwhile is living in Co Meath.
Unlike Westies bosses Coates and Sugg - and more than a dozen other mobsters that O'Connor and Goulding were friends with over the years - the feuding duo remain alive despite numerous attempts on their lives.
Sources say that associates of O'Connor are suspected of being linked to an attack which saw Goulding shot six times as he sat in a car in Hartstown in January 2012.
Goulding was lucky to escape with his life in the attack at Cherryfield View, Dublin 15.
The driver of the car was uninjured and it is understood that the lone gunman made his getaway on foot in the direction of Portersgate.
There has never been an arrest in that case.
That attack came following two tit-for-tat shootings between the factions the previous year.
After surviving the assassination attempt, Goulding was brought to Blanchardstown Hospital for treatment where he was watched over by gardai, as he had been on the run for months.
However, he made an audacious escape when three associates pepper-sprayed and assaulted uniformed officers who were guarding him.
Arrested
He was arrested two weeks later looking for Jason O'Connor at the Swords Road near Dublin Airport.
Goulding was then remanded in custody and eventually handed a three-and-a-half year sentence for two burglaries in the Portmarnock area dating back to March 2005.
Aside from their own feud, both O'Connor and Goulding have been involved in other underworld spats.
O'Connor was previously in the headlines when he had his fingers chopped off with an axe in a horrific May 2012 attack by Real IRA members under the direction of their boss Alan Ryan.
He arrived at Dublin's Mater Hospital with two fingers missing from his right hand.
He had also suffered injuries to the back of his head consistent with beating and torture.
One of the missing fingers was recovered in Fairview Park that evening and doctors sewed it back on to his hand. The second finger was never found.
Despite his injuries, O'Connor refused to identify his attackers but gardai quickly established that Alan Ryan's mob were responsible.
Real IRA criminal Ryan was shot dead four months later, but O'Connor is not a suspect in that high-profile case.
He was however, a suspect in the murder of a Lithuanian crime boss in 2013.
Gintaras Zelvys was shot twice in the body with a handgun as he arrived with his wife to open up his 'cash for clothes' business in the Greenogue industrial estate, Rathcoole, west Dublin.
Detectives investigating the murder arrested O'Connor and two other Blanchardstown men in a special operation shortly after the murder but they were all later released without charge.
Murdered
Goulding's name meanwhile, has come up in court proceedings.
At a hearing in July 2010 it emerged that on the day that murdered crime figure John Paul Joyce went missing, Joyce went to hand over a BMW car's logbook to David Goulding.
Joyce's body was found near Dublin Airport on January 9, 2010, two days after he had last been seen.
During the hearing at Dublin District Court, Goulding's former wife Karen Duffy claimed Joyce sold the Northern Ireland-registered car to her and her partner David Goulding for €7,000 and they were the legal owners of the vehicle.
Ms Duffy said she and Goulding paid cash for the car.
Just last month, Ms Duffy was in court again when she partially forfeited a €30,000 bail bond to the State because Mark Allen, the friend she had raised it for, had fled the jurisdiction.
It emerged in Dublin Circuit Court that gardaí opposed Ms Duffy as surety as they found her "completely unsuitable".
Referring to David Goulding, a senior detective told the court that "she was in a 12-year relationship with someone that was very well known to the gardaí and involved in organised crime".
He said the couple had a bank account that had previously been frozen by the Criminal Assets Bureau and gardaí had seized €16,000 from him.
"Her husband was on the run at the time. There were circuit court warrants out for his arrest. She claimed they were estranged but he was still registered as living at her home," the detective explained.
Ms Duffy told the court that CAB initially seized her and her ex-husband's bank accounts but were later satisfied that the funds had been made up of a credit union loan, a winning cheque from Paddy Power and a €30,000 insurance claim.
Ms Duffy agreed that when gardaí raided her home and discovered the €16,000, the money had been in her handbag but she claimed she didn't know it was there.
She said her ex-husband Goulding told her he had won it in poker and she never asked any more questions about it.
Aside from these separate issues, the war between O'Connor's and David Goulding has been continuing apace.
The bitter west Dublin feud has intensified since Goulding was released from jail a number of months ago after serving time for the burglary sentence.
Tirade
In the aftermath of the latest attempt on his life earlier this year, O'Connor gave a foul-mouthed tirade to a newspaper reporter.
It gave a shocking insight into what he thought of the criminals who attempted to murder him.
"I'll tell you a story, there's going to be a f***ing war in Blanchardstown - they are f***ing dead, stone f***ing dead," he said. "They won't see the end of the week."
The criminal's prediction has not yet happened. However, gardai are on high alert for more fallout from the bitter feud playing out on the streets of west Dublin.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and...ivity-1.2312631

Five appear in court on dissident republican activity
Four men and one woman charged as a result of operation targeting IRA in capital.

Four men and a woman have appeared before the Special Criminal Court in Dublin on IRA-related charges.
The five were arrested on Saturday afternoon as part of an operation targeting dissident republican activity in the Dublin region.
It was led by the Garda’s Special Detective Unit, Emergency Response Unit and Crime and Security Branch.
Kevin Hannaway (67), of Collin Mill, Belfast, was charged with knowingly rendering assistance to an unlawful organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Óglaigh na hÉireann , otherwise the IRA, whether directly or indirectly in the performance or furtherance of an illegal object on August 7th and 8th, 2015.
His co-accused Edward O’Brien (41), of Hazelcroft Road, Finglas, Dublin 11 and Eva Shannon (59) of Oakman Street, Belfast are charged with the same offence on the same date.
David Nooney (52) of Coultry Green, Ballymun, Dublin 11, and Sean Hannaway (57), of Linden Gardens, Belfast are each charged with membership of an unlawful organisation within the State, namely an organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Óglaigh na hÉireann, otherwise the IRA on August 8th, 2015.
Detective Garda Connor Morgan told State Solicitor Michael O’Donovan that he formally arrested Kevin Hannaway at Tower Road, Clondalkin Dublin 22 at 2.50pm on Monday.
Det Gda Morgan said that he explained to the accused man the reason for his arrest in ordinary language and cautioned him.
He told the court Mr Hannaway replied: “I understand”.
Det Gda Morgan said that at the time he believed the accused man, who appeared before the court wearing a grey blazer and slacks, had committed the offence for which he was arrested.
Mr O’Donovan told the court that his application was for a remand in custody for all five accused.
Judge Martin Nolan, presiding, remanded the five in custody to appear before the court again on August 17th.

http://www.sundayworld.com/news/northern...sident-activity

Two arrested by cops investigating dissident activity.

Two men have been arrested in south Armagh by detectives from Serious Crime Branch investigating dissident republican terrorist activity.
The men, aged 25 and 50, were arrested in the Cullyhanna area this morning, Thursday 27 August and have been taken to the Serious Crime Suite at Antrim Police Station for questioning.

http://www.sundayworld.com/news/explosive-device-found-in-dublin

Viable explosive device found in Dublin.

Residents had to be evacuated from their homes after the discovery at a private residence in Finglas.
The device was found at a property in the Tolka Valley Park area of Finglas, Dublin, before noon today.

The Defence Forces deployed their Explosive Ordnance Disposal team to the scene and the device was made safe with a controlled explosion at 12.30.

The device was then removed for further technical examination where it was confirmed it was a viable device.

The Gardai are now investigating.

http://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/crime/na-fianna-eireann-children-aged-6347817

Na Fianna Eireann: Children aged 10 being groomed in training camps as IRA of future
07:00, 30 AUGUST 2015 UPDATED 09:00, 30 AUGUST 2015
BY JAMES WARD
Former Republican Sinn Fein vice-president Fergal Moore described the route from Na Fianna Eireann to the IRA as a “natural progression”

Children as young as 10 are being groomed in training camps as the IRA of the future, we can reveal.

Members of Na Fianna Eireann, described as Ireland’s Republican Boy Scouts, are being indoctrinated by participating in military drills and marches.

The Dublin -based group are led by members of Republican Sinn Fein and have aligned themselves with the Continuity IRA.

Former RSF vice-president Fergal Moore described the route from Na Fianna Eireann to the IRA as a “natural progression”.

He said: “Obviously at some stage you will find that people who have been in Na Fianna will be called dissidents or Irish Republican Army members.

“They would have learned their history and their time in Na Fianna would have convinced them to continue on that road. It's a natural progression.”

Most members of Na Fianna Eireann are in their teens, but boys as young as 10 are believed to be involved.

Though their numbers are small, the group believe they will attract more members with the right organisation.

Na Fianna, who were involved in a counter-march at the Easter Rising commemorations in Dublin last year, are well known to gardai.

IRA youngsters
A security source told the Irish Sunday Mirror: “These young boys are the dissidents of the future. We’re well aware of the links the people training them have.”

The group, who were featured in the Vice News documentary Ireland’s Young Warriors, appear to be preparing themselves for an armed struggle.

One Na Fianna youth leader, named as Alan, told the film: “We would be classed as dissident republicans and probably junior terrorists, or whatever they want to call us.

“But if they studied the history of Ireland they’d know that there’s only one way you can get the Brits to leave Ireland and that is through a physical force campaign.

“As long as the Brits remain here they are going to shoot down more innocent civilians.

“We recognise, basically, the Continuity Army Council of the Irish Republican Army. We’re not getting into these people’s minds, that’s the wrong thing to say. We believe we are getting the right things into their minds.

“I believe we will see a united Ireland but it’s going to be a very long and hard road.”

The group claim they face constant harassment from gardai who they believe are trying to “wipe out” the republican movement in all its forms.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZM9Z0NbQwM

Ireland's Young Warriors.

http://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/terrorists-soldiers-accused-horrific-murders-6421140

Terrorists and soldiers accused of horrific murders in Northern Ireland's Troubles can confess and walk free.

While hundreds of suspects will avoid prosecution in exchange for confessions to their crimes, relatives of the victims will still be kept in the dark.

Terrorists, British soldiers and RUC officers accused of horrific murders during the Troubles are being given a chance to wipe the slate clean on their violent pasts.

But while hundreds of suspects will avoid prosecution in exchange for confessions to their crimes, relatives of the victims will still be kept in the dark about who killed their loved ones.

The identities of those being offered amnesty under an agreement between the Government and Northern Ireland’s political parties will be kept secret.

And families will never know if the confession has been made or the crime “solved”.

But while the authorities claim allowing killers to escape justice with a confession is a way of moving forward and closing another chapter on the 30 years of troubles, relatives have reacted with fury at the move.

And it comes as the fragile peace process was plunged into crisis with the resignation of First Minister Peter Robinson and allegations of IRA involvement in a recent murder.

Eugene Reavey – whose three brothers John Martin, 24, Brian, 22, and 17-year-old Anthony were shot by a loyalist hit squad in 1976 – hit back at the secret deal. He said: “I’ve no amnesty on my grief.”

His anger was echoed by Former Tory Chairman Lord Tebbit, whose wife Margaret was left paralysed in the 1984 IRA Brighton bombing during the party conference that killed five.

He said: “I’m fairly sure I know who planned it, organised it and decided it should be done. For them to get away with it entirely, forever, without owning up publicly, is rather extraordinary.

“It seems to me like a secret amnesty. The criminals who confess to their crimes will be given an amnesty and no one will know about the crimes they committed.

"I don’t think the victims will be best pleased. What is in it for the victims? It suits the terrorists.”

Jim Allister, of the Traditional Unionist Voice party, added: “This is a shameful illustration of how, once again, innocent victims and their needs have been sacrificed in favour of the perverse ‘peace process’.

"Amnesty for terrorists, no matter how it is dressed up, is not just wrong but amounts to dancing on the graves of the victims.”


Michael Gallagher, whose son Aidan died with 28 others in the 1998 Omagh bombing by the Real IRA, said: “Once again the victims of the Troubles have been dismissed like a nuisance.

"We are the ones who buried our dead, who have to live with pain, grief and have battled for recovery every day for years.

“We are the ones who know how it feels to be a victim, to need truth and justice, to fully understand what ­reconciliation might mean.

Brighton BombBrighton Bomb: The Grand Hotel in Brighton after the IRA terrorist bombing during the Conservative Party conference in 1984
“This means nothing, this is a nonsense and it must be challenged legally.”

Human rights advocate Vincent Coyle, whose nephew Kieran Doherty was murdered in 2011 by the Real IRA, added: “This has to stop and families need real justice to be seen to be done, they need answers.

“These murders must be investigated fully and properly and people brought before the courts.”

Bobby Sands Funeral May 1981 Three masked men fire volleys of rifle shots in 1981 over the coffin of hunger-striker Bobby Sands during a pause in the funeral procession to Belfast's Milltown cemeteryActivist: Bobby Sands funeral May 1981
But a Stormont source insisted: “This is going into legislation whether people like it or not.

“It works for the governments, it tidies things up for them and they plan to move forward regardless.

“There appears to be support from certain victims’ groups but there will be hell to pay with others who were ­deliberately left out of discussions.”

The Government and the Ulster parties set up the ­Implementation and Reconciliation Group to deal with ­atrocities carried out before the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

PADeputy First Minister of Northern Ireland Martin McGuinness (left) and Sinn Fein president Gerry AdamsLeaders: Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland Martin McGuinness (left) and Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams
It will allow the killers to make their confessions safe in the knowledge there will be no further action taken.

But there are no plans for a public process similar to the ground breaking truth and ­reconciliation process in South Africa at the end of Apartheid.

Instead, the murderers will make a “statement of acknowledgement” behind closed doors.

The process could be announced as early as October and regulations laid at Westminster under the Stormont House Agreement without public consultation.

It is seen as giving an opportunity for former paramilitaries linked to both the Republican and Loyalist sides to move on from their murderous pasts.

Photopress BelfastOmagh Bomb sceneDevastation: Omagh bomb scene
It would also give ex-British soldiers and members of the now defunct RUC the chance to clear their names without the threat of jail.

A unionist source close to the ­negotiations, said: ­“Confession to a terrorist act will not result in ­prosecution. We do not count that an amnesty.”

Information about collaborators revealed during any confession will also remain secret and will never be made public or shared with the police.

The Mirror has also learned that blood and DNA samples collected during the Troubles are being destroyed and copies will be kept by a new Historical Investigations Unit but not used for prosecutions.

Peter HainPeter Hain: He has previously called for a blanket amnesty
The Northern Ireland Office and Ministry of Defence refused to comment.

But a spokesman for the ­Democratic Unionist Party said: “These claims are completely without ­foundation. Indeed the opposite is true.

"The DUP has never and will never agree any amnesty for terrorists.”

Last year, former Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain called for a blanket amnesty for crimes committed during the Troubles even though the ­controversial move would make victims and survivors “desperately angry”.

But a spokesman for David Cameron said: “The Prime Minister does not support the idea of amnesties.”

PADavid CameronDavid Cameron: He does not support the amnesty
The peace process descended into chaos with Mr Robinson’s dramatic resignation.

He also announced he would be take other ministers from his party with him.

Mr Robinson had issued an ultimatum that he would resign unless all Assembly business was suspended for crisis talks over the alleged IRA involvement in the murder of Kevin McGuigan.

PAFirst Minister Peter Robinson, who is to hold talks with other parties about the possibility of Sinn Fein being excluded from Northern Ireland's governmentQuit: First Minister Peter Robinson has dramatically resigned
It followed the arrest of three senior Republicans, including Sinn Fein’s northern chairman Bobby Storey, in connection with the shooting.

Mr Storey has been released by detectives. Two others were still believed to be in custody.

South Africa’s Truth and ­Reconciliation Commission was an open court-style process where those accused of violence could give evidence and request amnesty from prosecution.

Victims also had a central role, giving statements about their ­experiences and some were selected to give their ­testimony at public hearings.

The Troubles in numbers
3,600 People died over three decades of violence. More than 2,000 were civilians.
1,000 Soldiers and police officers were killed during the years of conflict.
10,000 Bomb attacks took place, including the Brighton
300,000 Troops served in Northern Ireland from 1969-2007.
3,000 Crimes could be wiped clean as part of the secret

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/18/belfast-psni-arms-cache-semtex-ballymurphy

Belfast: PSNI discovers arms cache thought to belong to republican terrorists
Handguns, ammunition, detonators and semtex found during raid on house in Ballymurphy district.

Police in Northern Ireland have discovered an arms and explosives cache thought to belong to republican dissident terrorists opposed to the peace process.

Almost half a kilogram of semtex explosive was found during a raid by armed police officers at a house in west Belfast, it was confirmed on Friday.

The security operation late on Thursday night at a house in the republican Ballymurphy district also uncovered two detonators, two handguns and 200 rounds of ammunition.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland said a 38-year-old woman and a 67-year-old man had been arrested after the searches on Ballymurphy Road.

The pair were photographed at the scene being led into a PSNI armoured vehicle dressed in white forensic boiler suits. They were taken to the serious crimes suite at Antrim police station for questioning.

A number of homes in the republican district had to be evacuated during the security operation. The PSNI said the operation was part of an investigation into “violent dissident terrorist activity.”

DCI Gillian Kearney said: “We are delighted to have removed these potentially lethal items from the streets of west Belfast. We appreciate the clearance operation which was needed to ensure everyone’s safety through the night disrupted many people’s lives, requiring people to leave their homes and inconveniencing road users.

“We would like to thank them for their patience and understanding during the operation. We will continue to work with the community to ensure we keep everyone safe.”

The capture of the weaponry, particularly the semtex, will be regarded as a major disruption to armed dissident republican activity in the greater Belfast area.

Semtex, first supplied by Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in Libya to the Provisional IRA in the 1980s, has been used in numerous terrorist atrocities and high-profile bombing attacks including the explosions that devastated part of the City of London in the early 1990s from the Bishopsgate bomb to Canary Wharf.

The discovery of the semtex will raise questions from unionist politicians about whether the Czech-made explosive came from a cache of the PIRA’s huge terror arsenal that was meant to have been decommissioned a decade ago.

The location of the weapons is also significant given Ballymurphy’s history as a republican stronghold during the Troubles. The area was the home of Gerry Adams’s family as well as the district from which many of the PIRA’s most militant fighters in the conflict emerged.

While most people in Ballymurphy are strongly pro-Sinn Féin and support the peace process there is a small network of family-related dissident republicans operating in the area.

http://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/crime/irishman-shot-dead-broad-daylight-6509554

Irishman shot dead in broad daylight by masked gunman in Spain.

An Irishman has been shot in cold blood in a broad-daylight murder in Spain.

The 30-year-old, who has not been named, is understood to have been gunned down on a gated estate in Miraflores between the Costa del Sol resorts of Marbella and Fuengirola at around 11.30am this morning.

The gunman fled in a car which was later found abandoned outside a nearby restaurant.

Local Civil Guard officers have launched an investigation into the shooting, which sources said bore all the hallmarks of a professional hit.

The lifeguard at the complex, called Angel de Miraflores, confirmed the shooting victim was Irish.

He said: “I know he’s Irish because I’ve spoken to him and I’ve seen his identity documents.

“I was the one who identified him. He lives in a ground-floor flat but I don’t know his name or much about him. He’s very reserved.

Google MapsThe Miraflores Resort close to Malaga
“The gunman was masked and wore gloves. He started shooting in the garage before chasing his victim out into the swimming pool.”

A neighbour, who asked not to be named, said: “We heard the first shots go off in the garage under our home and then saw this man running around the garden where the swimming pool is with a balaclava on and gloves.

“We thought at first it was a terrorist. There were lots of shots, around a dozen, and then we saw him running away.”

A spokesman for the emergency services confirmed: “We received a call at 11.39am advising us of a shooting. We immediately informed police and paramedics.“

They arrived to find a man had been shot dead and the suspected gunman had fled the scene.

Read more: Two Irishmen sentenced to 11 years for vicious killing of English builder in Costa del Sol

“Paramedics could do nothing to revive him and he was pronounced dead at the scene. He is a 30 year-old man.”

Civil Guard officers were this afternoon guarding the main car entrance to the gated estate where the shooting occurred.

Forensic experts were examining the area by the swimming pool where the murder happened.

The gloved officers could be seen working in a cordoned-off area by a corner of the communal pool between two apartment blocks.

Residents trying to reach their homes were warned by the police not to go near the pool before they were let in.

One said he had been told the victim was an Irishman who lived in a ground-floor flat and was recognised as the dead man by the lifeguard.

He said he had lived at the flat for around a year and did not know his name.

Another said she had also heard the victim was Irish and described him as someone who was “pleasant but kept himself to himself.”

She added: “There was a woman living with him who I imagine was his girlfriend but she hasn’t been around of late.”

Eye-witnesses are understood to have told police the victim, a keen sportsman, was targeted when he came back from a run by a man wearing a balaclava who chased him round the pool on foot before shooting him.

One British expat whose flat overlooks the pool, said: “I didn’t see anything but it makes me terrified to think something like this can happen round here.

“It’s like something out of a film. I’ve heard the pool was empty at the time but if it had been midday in August it could have been a bloodbath.

“They’ve just put new CCTV in so hopefully they’ve got whoever did it on camera."

Another British family who were returning from a day out to their home on the estate, which comprises more than half a dozen five-storey apartment blocks built around the pool, said: “We haven’t been told anything by the police.

“We’ve just been told we can’t go anywhere near the pool.”

"The police have taken stray bullets out of the walls of an apartment block round the pool. I shudder to think what would have happened if one of those had gone through the window of a flat."

A graphic video on a local newspaper website showed funeral workers loading the victim on to a stretcher before being taken away.

A spokesman for the Civil Guard which is probing the killing, said: “We have no official statement to make at the moment.”

The Miraflores resort where the shooting occurred lies just off the N340 dual carriageway which runs along the Costa del Sol and is very near to missing Amy Fitzpatrick's mum Audrey's old home.

VIEW GALLERY Gerard Kavanagh
It is one of the most popular expat and tourist areas on the Costa del Sol and lies a short drive from Calahonda, known as Little Britain because of the number of Brits that live there round the year or own holiday homes there.

Last week a 30-year-old Colombian was shot dead as he sat in his wife’s Golf GTI in nearby Las Lagunas heading towards Fuengirola.

A man on a motorbike driven by an accomplice pumped seven bullets into him before making his getaway.

Read more: 'Hatchet' Gerard Kavanagh shot dead in Costa del Sol pub

Last September Irish gangster Gerard ‘Hatchet’ Kavanagh was shot dead at a Costa del Sol pub in a professional hit.

Two gunmen shot him nine times on the terrace of Harmons Irish Bar in Elviria near Marbella.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and...urces-1.2367017

Dublin criminal shot dead was suspected informer, say sources
Nephew of The Monk, Gary Hutch, was shot dead in Costa del Sol by masked gunman.

Irish criminal Gary Hutch was shot dead in Spain by an international crime gang who tried to murder him last year because they suspected he was an informer, Garda sources believe.
A previous attempt had been made to shoot him dead in Marbella in August of last year. However, on that occasion well known boxer Jamie Moore was wounded in the legs instead.
The Garda and police in Spain believed at that time Hutch was wrongly blamed by an international crime gang for supplying information to the police that resulted in the seizure of a major drugs haul destined for the UK.

Hutch had fled to Amsterdam in the aftermath of last year’s murder bid and had travelled home to Dublin a number of times in the last 12 months because he feared for his safety in Spain.
However, he had returned to live there and it is believed the gang who tried to kill him last year were behind his murder on Thursday morning.
The 34-year-old from Dublin’s north inner city was an armed robber and drug dealer and a nephew of suspected armed robber Gerry Hutch, also known as The Monk.
Gary Hutch’s brother Derek Hutch is currently serving 16 years for a variety of offences including the manslaughter of a man stabbed to death, coordinating a botched robbery in which an accomplice was shot dead by the Garda, and a separate charge of possession of a firearm.
Gary Hutch was gunned down beside a swimming pool in a communal area of the Angel de Miraflores apartments complex, near Marbella on the Costa del Sol.
It is understood Hutch had been living at the apartment block where he was shot at about 11am on Thursday and that the gunman open fired on him in a garage or basement area of the complex.
He survived the initial shot and ran into the swimming pool area to get away from the gunman, who was masked and wearing gloves.
However, he was fatally wounded when the gunman ran after him and discharged a number of shots.
The killer escaped on a waiting motorbike and was driven from the scene by an accomplice after what appears to have been a well-planned murder.
Hutch, from Champions Avenue in Dublin city, was a member of a crime syndicate in the south of Spain based around the Marbella area that is led by a number of Irish men but which has links globally.
The gang is regarded as the main drugs wholesaler supplying the Irish market and has been targeted as part of Operation Shovel, an international operation aimed at disrupting its routes and confiscating its assets.
In May 2010, 33 suspected members of the gang were arrested, many of them in Estepona, Marbella, Fuengirola and Mijas in Spain.
Hutch was the sole suspect arrested in Ireland as part of the operation, which involved 700 police officers in five countries.
Among those detained in Spain was Dubliner Christy Kinahan, a 53-year-old father of three. The convicted drug dealer was the key target of the raids and is the head of the gang Hutch was working for at the time of his death.
The crime syndicate’s members have been increasingly drawn into gun violence on the Costa del Sol, with Hutch the third Irish man connected to the gang gunned down in the area.
Hutch was on the scene when close associate and multiple murder suspect Paddy Doyle (27), from Portland Place, Dublin, was shot dead near Marbella in February 2008. His younger brother Barry Doyle (29) is also a hired killer and is currently serving life for the 2008 murder of Shane Geoghegan in Limerick.
Hutch was also associated with Dubliner Gerard Kavanagh (44), an enforcer and debt collector for the Kinahan gang who was shot dead in Spain last September.
In 2006 when a young Dublin man was shot and wounded in the city, he named Hutch as the person who tried to kill him. However, the witness later resiled from his evidence, claiming he had only named Hutch as the gunman to get revenge on him after hearing rumours he was having an affair with his girlfriend.
“I couldn’t tell you, I could have said Mass and I wouldn’t have known,” the shooting victim said in court when asked to confirm that while he was in the Mater hospital, he had told a garda Hutch had shot him.
In 2001, Hutch was jailed for six years for his role in the robbery of jewellery worth £32,000 and £5,000 cash from a businessman in Malahide, north Dublin.
The man was in bed with his wife when they woke up to find four masked men in the room, brandishing a shotgun. They handcuffed the man, brought him downstairs and forced him to open his safe. Hutch never entered the house, but acted as the getaway driver.
He was on bail at the time in relation to other theft charges, for which he was later jailed for four years.
Despite a judge ordering that a four-year and six-year jail term should run consecutively because the jewellery raid was carried out while Hutch was on bail, he was freed from prison in 2006.
Since then had spent much of his time living in Spain, working in the drugs trade. He also spent some time in Ireland and was involved in organised crime in Dublin.
When a bank official was kidnapped at a house in Co Kildare six years ago and threatened that he must go to his place of work at the Bank of Ireland vaults on College Green in Dublin’s south inner city and take money for the gang, Hutch was a chief suspect.
The official was told his girlfriend’s family would be harmed if he did not comply. A total of €7.6 million was taken, almost all of which was never recovered.

No armed Gardai at Gary Hutch funeral 'due to lack of resources'



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A lack of resources means there will be no armed gardai at the funeral of murdered gangster Gary Hutch today.

Despite fears his allies are hell-bent on revenge for his bloody death in Spain, there won’t be a beefed-up security presence in Dublin’s north-inner city as he is laid to rest this morning.

Gardai are said to be “furious” armed officers aren’t being called in as back-up, even though some of the capital’s most notorious gangland figures are expected to pay their respects.

Hutch, who was betrayed for €5,000 and gunned down outside his apartment in Miraflores a fortnight ago, will be buried after Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes Church on Sean McDermott Street.

Detectives believe the 34-year-old was murdered by the feared Kinahan gang after boss Christy Kinahan suspected Hutch was double-crossing him by pretending to be on his side while pocketing more than €100,000 from his coffers.

The dead gangster’s allies are understood to want revenge while Kinahan’s henchmen are believed to be coming to Dublin to settle scores with others they suspect are screwing the cartel.

Former associate Fat Freddie Thompson and his pals are top of the hit list.

However, despite that threat and the potential for bloodshed, it will be up to rank-and-file gardai to police the areas and keep the congregation under surveillance.

A source claimed: “There’s no overtime for the funeral so no gardai with guns.

“There’s no money and the top brass don’t see a threat.

“Cops are furious that armed officers aren’t being called in as back-up.

“It’ll just be the normal amount of uniforms on duty so let’s hope nothing kicks off.”

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Gardai refused to comment when contacted by the Irish Mirror last night.

Several of Dublin’s most notorious gangland figures are expected to pay their respects today, but pal Fat Freddie may stay away for his own safety.

Gary’s uncle Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch, who spends his time between Dublin and Spain, is also expected to attend.

It’s not yet known whether the victim’s brother, Derek “Del Boy” Hutch, will be granted temporary release from prison to say a final farewell.

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How a massive UK drug bust kick-started chain of events that led to Hutch murder


Gary Hutch’s death warrant was signed on a spring morning when a van filled with frozen food was surrounded by officers from one of the U.K.’s most prolific crime fighting forces.
The bust, as is the way in the drug world, had a catastrophic domino effect.

It resulted in the jailing of a major U.K. drug lord as well as Newry farmer Aiden Smyth, who got an eight-year sentence this week for his role in the conspiracy to import drugs.

A 50-year-old haulier from Dundalk has also been caught up in the net that has resulted in 16 people being charged with drug offences. The wealthy businessman is due for trial in December after being extradited from Ireland.

And it resulted, inevitably, in the man blamed for the bust lying in a pool of blood, when Hutch was hunted down to a Spanish apartment complex.

The beginning of the end for Hutch began in February 2014 when the Volkswagen van was pulled over near a service area at Sandbach in Cheshire. Officers discovered a cargo of cannabis packets and a white powder substance packed in among frozen goods.

The bust was a huge coup for Titan, the north west’s regional organised crime unit, which has enjoyed unprecedented success as one of the U.K.’s foremost drug-fighting wings. The information was so good and precise that it could only have come from within a tight-knit group who knew details of the plan to deliver the goods through an Irish transport firm to locations in the U.K.


From the off, officers knew that this was a big one. More than 100 50-gramme packets of cannabis were packed into the refrigerated goods, along with 225 kilograms of the powder which was later tested and found to be ketamine.

The wholesalers, the cops suspected, were the Kinahan drug cartel, but the seizure of the consignment would mark the start of a whole lot of trouble for senior gang lieutenant Gary Hutch.

The ripple effects of the seizure were vast and the probe would lead to the arrest and jailing of one of Manchester’s most-prolific drug lords, Paul Doyle, along with the virtual wipeout of his gang. His sidekick Michael Manning (52), of Salford, was also jailed.

In the criminal underworld, this was one case where the rat would have to be found and would have to pay.

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Over the following months officers uncovered what they now believed to be a £300million drug ring that was linked back to Spain and to the Kinahan mob. As the probe spread, the Kinahans were coming under pressure to find out who had sparked the collapse of a lucrative racket. In Spain, the finger of blame was being pointed at Hutch.

Known for his loose talk and volatile nature, Hutch was one of Daniel Kinahan’s best friends and closest lieutenants. Over a seven-year period on the Costa he had firmly established himself at the very top of the Kinahan cartel and was trusted with organising shipments from all over the world to customers of the mob.

He denied any involvement of snitching on the Manchester gangsters – but as the accusations began to fly, his own mob eventually began to suspect that he was indeed a rat.

In May, when Jean Boylan died, the cartel travelled to Ireland for the funeral of the estranged wife of ‘Dapper Don’ Christy Kinahan and the mother of his two children, Daniel and Christopher Jnr. Before the funeral – which was held on Thomas Street in the south inner city – graffiti was painted in red on the walls of a nearby Russian Orthodox Church with slogans that read 'Gary Hutch U Rat'.


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Hutch insisted he was innocent, but even the dogs on the street knew he was being blamed and the graffiti was a huge embarrassment to the Kinahan brothers.

In Manchester, the seizure had thrown up a huge amount of intelligence and the focus turned to gangster Paul Doyle and his links to foreign gangs. It was found that he had funded a heroin run from France and had been bringing in vast amounts of cocaine.

One by one his associates were arrested and brought in.

In July, officers in the U.K. swooped on properties in Altrincham, Prestwich, Salford and Bolton in a high-profile drug bust that saw them battering their way into the properties of suspected kingpins, including the home of Doyle. Larger-than-life Doyle, a 56-year-old father of two, bought his million-euro home claiming his wife was a company executive, while claiming benefits.


Back in Spain the heat was now firmly on Hutch. Within weeks of the busts, boxer Jamie Moore miraculously survived when he was shot in the garden of Daniel Kinahan’s Costa home.

Officers believe the innocent fight coach was gunned down in a case of mistaken identity and while Daniel Kinahan made the bizarre move of asking Spanish police for protection, Hutch fled for Amsterdam.

In October, four more arrests were made, including that of Newry haulier Aiden Peter Smyth, who was charged with conspiring to supply ketamine and cannabis.

Extradition proceedings began in Dublin for another businessman from the Dundalk area whose case has yet to be heard in the U.K. At the same time, Gerard ‘Hatchet’ Kavanagh was whacked in Marbella and sources immediately blamed the Kinahan mob of taking out their own.

In Ireland, the businessman fought extradition towards the end of 2014 and into the New Year. In March, Paul Kavanagh, the brother of Hatchet, was assassinated on a Dublin street. Time was running out for Hutch.

He returned to Dublin a number of times this year, including last February when the Sunday World snapped him on his way to visit his family. In April, the law finally caught up on Doyle and he was jailed for 16 years after pleading guilty to flooding the north west with drugs over a two-year period.


As trials loomed for Smyth and others that had been caught up in the net, the Kinahans came under increasing pressure to deal with their rat. Over the summer, a senior member of the Kinahan mob visited Hutch’s parents home and demanded €100,000, saying that if they could come up with the money his life would be spared.

It is understood that Hutch met with ‘Fat’ Freddie Thompson and with associates of the Byrne brothers, Liam and David. He told them that he had never been a rat.

The Sunday World understands that the gang called Hutch’s bluff and told him he was welcome back in Spain. They also furnished him with some information to see if it would get back to them.

Sure enough, Hutch passed on the information. He was murdered at an apartment complex in Miraflores in Spain where he had been living. He was buried last Monday week in Dublin after his parents Patsy and Kay returned his body from Spain.

A day later at Manchester Magistrates Court, Smyth was sent away for eight years after pleading guilty to his role in the VW van bust. Another bloody gangland circle was complete.

Fat Freddie defied death threats to watch Ireland beat Germany in Dublin

Gangster 'Fat' Freddie Thompson defied death threats to fly to Dublin and attend Ireland's European Championship qualifier against Germany earlier this month.

Thompson (34) arrived from England and spent two nights here, during which time he was in the crowd at the Aviva to cheer Ireland to a 1-0 win over the world champions

The soccer-mad mobster then slipped back out of the country and returned to his hideaway in England, via Spain.

"This information is credible, but Thompson was not linked to any incident while he was here," a source told the Herald

"Dublin really is not the safest of places for Freddie to be, and he took some risk by coming over here."

Thompson fled the country within hours of being released from Mountjoy Prison last August 1.

He "has never been more isolated", according to sources.

His situation has become even more dangerous after the murder last month of his one-time best pal Gary Hutch on the Costa del Sol.

He was neither expected nor seen at Hutch's funeral in the north inner city.

It is understood that Thompson's former cronies in the Christy Kinahan cartel have disowned him and have even branded him a garda informer.

Gardai believe he is next on Kinahan's hit list following the gun murders of three former gang members, including Hutch, in the past 14 months.

Thompson served a 15-month sentence for violent disorder after an attack on another man in a pub on Cork Street on January 7, 2013. He was extradited from Amsterdam in May of last year and immediately remanded in custody.

He subsequently received a 20-month sentence for his involvement in the vicious brawl.

The court heard the violence was sparked by a slagging match to which Thompson reacted by throwing a punch and a bottle.

The Herald previously revealed that Thompson had fallen out of favour with Christy Kinahan because the mob consider him a "nuisance and a liability".

Tensions are expected to increase in Dublin next month when some senior members of the cartel are expected here for a major boxing event.

Two men in court charged over €2.8m drug seizure
Pat Burnell (34) and Joseph Hickey (41) charged with possessing heroin and cocaine



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A furniture removal man has been granted bail after he was charged over a seizure of almost €3 million worth of heroin and cocaine in Dublin on Wednesday night.

The Garda Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau, with the assistance of the Tallaght Drugs Unit, intercepted a vehicle at Greenhills Road, Tallaght, Dublin 24.
Two men were arrested and brought to Tallaght Garda Station where they were held under Section Two of the Drug Trafficking Act. They were charged on Thursday evening and brought to appear before Judge John Coughlan at Dublin District Court on Friday.

Pat Burnell (34), a furniture removal man from Kiltalown Road, Tallaght and Joseph Hickey (41) from Ulster St, Phibsborough, Dublin 7, were charged with possessing heroin and cocaine for sale or supply. Garda Sergeant Brian Cagney and Garda Stephen Coller of Tallaght Drugs Unit told Judge Coughlan that both men “made no reply” when the charges were put to them. They have not yet indicated how they will plead.


Mr Hickey consented to being remanded in custody to appear at Cloverhill District Court on Wednesday.

Gda Sgt Cagney said he was objecting to Mr Burnell’s bail application on the grounds of the seriousness of the offence and the nature of the evidence in support of the charge. He said the seizure of cocaine and heroin was worth approximately €2.8 million and it was likely there would be “further more serious charges”. Gda Sgt Cagney agreed with Judge Coughlan that it was alleged Mr Burnell was “caught in the act” and he feared he would “flee the jurisdiction”.

Gda Sgt Cagney also said that if the court decided to grant bail there should be an independent surety with a “substantial amount and strict conditions”.
Defence solicitor Tracy Horan asked the judge to note that Mr Burnell was a married father of two-children living and working in the Tallaght area. He had no prior criminal convictions, the solicitor also said.

She told the court Mr Burnell’s father, who was present, was a respectable man, and offering to stand bail.
Judge Coughlan said the case was serious but he was inclined to grant bail in the defendant’s own bond of €20,000 and he allowed the man’s father to act as an independent surety in the sum of €10,000.

The defendant was also told he must continue to reside at his current address and sign on once a week at Tallaght Garda station. He was warned that he has to provide a mobile phone number to gardai and be contactable 24 hours a day. He was also ordered to surrender his passport and undertake not to apply for new travel documents.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/r...d-34168386.html


Real IRA bid to kidnap former U2 boss feared.

The kidnap of former U2 manager Paul McGuinness was considered a possibility by gardai who were keeping two Real IRA vans under surveillance.

Superintendent Martin Harrington has told an inquiry in the Republic that this was one of the possibilities discussed by members of the Garda Emergency Response Unit (ERU) as the vans were being followed.

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Supt Harrington also denied that he or any other garda had kicked a prisoner in the head during the operation.

The inquiry is examining the circumstances around the fatal shooting by gardai of Real IRA member Ronan MacLochlainn (28) from Ballymun, Dublin, who died at the scene of a botched armed robbery near Ashford, Co Wicklow, on May 1, 1998.

Supt Harrington, a detective garda with the ERU at the time, described how the two vans had been followed from Dublin to Ashford by the national surveillance unit with back-up from the ERU. ERU vehicles met in the car park of Hunter's Hotel near Ashford at around 4.15pm on May 1 to discuss the operation but no one knew what was happening, he stressed.

Supt Harrington remembered one of the group, but he did not remember who, asking if there were any high-profile targets living in the area who could be kidnapped.

"Someone mentioned U2 manager Paul McGuinness. They thought he lived in the area," he added.

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The superintendent denied to the inquiry that, when he arrived at the scene of the robbery, that he or any other garda kicked a prisoner in the head as he lay handcuffed on the ground.

Dr Hayes, BL for the Commission, said the raider, Saoirse Breathnach, would give evidence to the inquiry later that he was assaulted when he was on the ground. He would say there had been no struggle to get him out of the car, that he got out himself and lay on the ground.

http://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/crime/real-ira-chiefs-vow-start-6737840

Real IRA chiefs vow to start all out war as brother of slain leader Alan Ryan stabbed in the face in broad daylight.

Republicans say they will 'paint the streets red' after the 25-year-old was stabbed in Dublin city centre on Thursday.

Real IRA chiefs have vowed to start an all out war with criminal gangs after a brother of slain Alan Ryan was stabbed in the face in broad daylight.

Vinnie Ryan, 25, suffered serious injuries on Dublin’s Parnell Street on Thursday, sparking outrage amongst associates of his murdered brother.

Republicans in the capital have sworn to “paint the streets red” with the blood of the criminal gangs who are responsible for the attacks.

A statement purporting to be from the newly-reformed RIRA said there will be all out war on the streets of the capital.

It read: “The recent knife attack on a well known republican has sparked out rage among the newly reformed RIRA in Dublin.

“The RIRA have sworn to paint the streets red with the blood of the crime gang that attacked and nearly killed this well known republican they have also sworn to flush out members of the so called new IRA that have been passing information onto this crime gang about republicans.

Murdered Real IRA chief Alan Ryan
“Republican groups up and down the country have lost total confidence in the new IRA because of there links to criminality and their utter cowardly failure to address the murder of republican Alan Ryan.

“The RIRA in the north of Ireland and Dublin have regrouped and have amassed a stock pile of weapons which will be used against the crime gang that have been responsible for the murder of Alan Ryan and the attacks on republicans.”

Gardai confirmed they are investigating an incident on Parnell Street.

A spokesman said: “ Gardai in Mountjoy are investigating a serious stabbing incident which occurred on Parnell Sq North, Thursday shortly before 4pm.

“A male, 25, received serious injuries to his face as he was walking on Parnell Sq north.

“He was accompanied by a female who was uninjured in the incident.

“He made his way to Temple St Children’s hospital and was transferred by ambulance shortly afterwards to the Mater hospital, where his injuries are described as non life threatening.

“A scene was preserved for a technical examination.

http://www.derryjournal.com/news/1700-do...quest-1-7050342

1700 documents ‘need to be assessed’ for dissident republican inquest

More than 1,700 documents have to be assessed before the inquest into the death of a dissident republican in Northern Ireland, a lawyer told a preliminary hearing.

Kieran Doherty, 31, was shot dead in February 2010 and his body dumped on the outskirts of Derry. The Real IRA claimed responsibility for the killing of one of its own members but nobody has been charged with the murder.

Around 65 folders of evidence are under consideration and it will be next summer before work is completed on some of the voluminous paperwork, a Belfast coroner’s court heard.

An investigation into claims MI5 was involved in the killing has been partly withheld from Mr Doherty’s family on national security grounds and legal representatives complained about lack of progress in holding an inquest.

Peter Coll QC, barrister for the PSNI, said: “There are further underlying materials, for example a further 1,700 documents of varying different lengths which have to be assessed. There are other materials still to be addressed.

“Police anticipate that that process may take to approximately June of next year to be completed.”

Mr Doherty, from the Brandywell area of Derry, was murdered and his body dumped on Braehead Road on the outskirts of the city on February 24 2010.

He had been stripped, tied up and shot twice in the head.


The father-of-one had been due to get married three months later.

Although Mr Doherty was a member of the Real IRA, it was the Real IRA that said it was responsible for his murder.

Fiona Doherty QC, barrister for the Doherty family, said there had been little progress on holding the inquest during the last year.

She added the case was relatively modern compared to many legacy matters and it should be a priority to resolve it within a reasonable period.


“There does not appear to have been any real movement since around this time last year.”

Mr Coll said nine folders of material had already been prepared and would be available soon. Those surround 1,800 “actions” by police as part of their investigation into Mr Doherty’s murder as well as 247 statements.

http://www.sundayworld.com/news/crimedesk/gangland-on-brink-after-botched-hit-on-kinahan-crew

Gangland on brink after botched hit on Kinahan crew.

IRELAND’s underworld is on the brink of war after a brazen attempted hit on associates of the Kinahan drug cartel in the car park of a Dublin hotel.
Gardaí suspect that associates of murdered criminal Gary Hutch may have been behind the attack – under the noses of senior Kinahan enforcers as they watched a boxing event at the Red Cow Hotel on Dublin’s M50 interchange.

“This is a clear message to the Kinahans: ‘There will be blood’,” a source said.



Perma-tanned gangster Liam Roe miraculously escaped with his life after the would-be assassin’s gun jammed.

Roe, a first cousin of ‘Fat’ Freddie Thompson and key associate of the Kinahan drug cartel, was taking a cigarette break outside the hotel, where he was attending a boxing fundraiser, when the incident occurred on Friday night.

It is understood that the handgun jammed and Roe ran for cover before up to 50 associates of the Kinahan mob fled the venue in high-powered jeeps and cars.

Daniel Kinahan, son of mafia boss Christy Kinahan Snr, was led out the back of the venue and driven to safety in a silver Mercedes G Wagon, which the Sunday World has previously photographed being driven by associate David Byrne.

David Byrne in Mercedes G-Wagon

Last night we were watching the son and heir of the Kinahan millions outside the exclusive Westbury Hotel in central Dublin where he was relaxing with cohorts.

Gardaí do not believe that Roe was a specific target, but that there is a shoot-to-kill policy on any senior gang members since the assassination of Hutch in an apartment complex in Spain last September.

It is understood that after the gun jammed, the would-be hitman fled in the passenger seat of a waiting Volvo car. The car was later found abandoned and burnt out in the Ballyfermot area of Dublin. No complaint was made to Gardaí, but CCTV was later viewed at the scene.

The extended Kinahan mob descended on Dublin for last night’s National Stadium boxing event, which was sponsored by the Matthew Macklin MGM gym in Marbella, which has close connections with the gang.

Fears had been raised that members of the mob could be targeted by ex-associates of Hutch.

Gardaí suspect he was killed on the orders of the Kinahan mob after he was accused of leaking information about a drug shipment into Manchester, which resulted in the jailing of up to 18 members of a major drug gang.

‘Fat’ Freddie Thompson and Liam Byrne were said to be key to convincing Hutch he had safe passage back to Spain and would be welcomed back into the mob after months in the wilderness as a suspected rat.



Gary Hutch

Roe (35), is a senior member of the Kinahan circle and prides himself on his year-round tan, muscular build and love of flash watches and clothes.

He is a cousin of Thompson and the Byrne brothers, David and Liam, from Raleigh Square in Dublin, who are senior lieutenants in the drug gang.

Last year, an undercover Sunday World team photographed Rowe as he flexed his impressive muscles outside a restaurant at the City West Hotel complex.

He had attended a weigh-in prior to the 3 Arena bout between Matthew Macklin and Jorge Sebastien Heiland.

Before Macklin’s losing performance, Roe attended a private dinner along with Christy Kinahan Jnr, David Byrne and other mobsters in the Cartel’s inner circle.

Over the past two years, the Kinahan mob have become increasingly confident on the streets of Dublin, where they flash their wealth in a two-fingered salute to the Gardaí and the Criminal Assets Bureau.

Earlier this year, the Sunday World was watching as Liam Byrne was seen driving a Range Rover Autobiography, a motor worth up to €150,000, around the streets of Dublin. At the same time, his brother David was spotted in the €170,000 AMG G63 Wagon.

Roe is known for his love of the trappings of wealth. Three years ago he attempted to get Gardaí to return two Rolex watches worth almost €50,000, which they seized in a search for firearms. He failed in his police property application after a Judge ruled that he had given false evidence to a court.

During the case, it emerged that Roe was awarded £300,000 in a personal injuries case relating to a car crash in 1999 and said that he had used that money to buy watches.

Detectives from the Garda’s elite Organised Crime Unit told the court they had seized the watches during a search of a home in Crumlin, on January 8, 2011.

Last night’s event at the National Stadium, called ‘Second Coming’, was Jamie Kavanagh’s first professional fight in Dublin. Kavanagh is the son of murdered drug dealer Gerard ‘Hatchet’ Kavanagh, gunned down last year in Marbella, and a nephew of murdered enforcer Paul Kavanagh, who was killed last March.

Both murders have been blamed on the Kinahan mob after a row over missing money.

The incident at the Red Cow happened shortly after 9.30pm on Friday night and the burnt-out Volvo was discovered near Glenaulin Park in Chapelizod at 10.45pm. The event at the venue went ahead.

http://www.sundayworld.com/news/courts/c...-attack-reduced

Criminal Alan Wilson has sentence for meat cleaver attack reduced in allowance.

Dublin Criminal Alan Wilson has had his prison sentence for a meat clever attack reduced in allowance for time spent in custody awaiting trial for a murder he was ultimately acquitted of.
Wilson (36), of New Street Gardens, Dublin, along with David Crowley (38), of New Bride Street had pleaded not guilty to trespass while committing assault causing harm at Dromheath Drive in Blanchardstown on June 3, 2009. Crowley had also denied a second charge of unlawfully possessing a firearm on the same occasion.

Having been found guilty by a jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, Wilson was sentenced to seven years imprisonment and Crowley eight years imprisonment by Judge Desmond Hogan on April 12 2013.

Both men had conviction appeals dismissed last week, however, the Court of Appeal reduced Wilson's sentence by one year today becuase he had been in custody awaiting trial for murder while technically on bail awaiting trial for the meat-clever attack.

Mr Justice George Birmingham said Wilson's bail for the meat clever attack still existed notwithstanding the fact he was in custody on a more serious charge.

“He was effectively deprived of his liberty for 12 months,” the judge said.

Without making any general statement on principals, Mr Justice Birmingham said it was appropriate to reduce the sentence by 12 months in all the circumstaces.

Wilson made no reaction when the judgment of the court was read out.

Mr Justice Birmingham, who sat with President of the Court of Appeal Mr Justice Sean Ryan and Mr Justice John Edwards, accordingly resentenced him to six years imprisonment.

Counsel for Wilson, Padraig Dwyer SC, submitted that seven years was excessive with regard to his client's “antecedents”.

Submitting that prison should be a last resort, Mr Dwyer said Wilson had never been in prison before and had only one previous conviction recorded in the District Court for possession of a screw driver.

Furthermore, there was no victim impact report in the case even though “undoubtedly” the injured party “did sustain injuries”, Mr Dwyer said.

The court heard that he had gone into custody on April 5, 2012 and was sentenced on April 12, 2013.

He was acquitted of the murder of Marioara Rostas on July 31, 2014 having been refused bail on that charge.

http://www.sundayworld.com/news/crimedesk/gangland-murder-targets-show-of-force

Gangland murder target's show of force.

GANGLAND murder target may have seen former friends turn against him, but he can still rely on his family.
Jason ‘Jay’ O’Connor, a former member of the Westies crime gang, who was the target of a hit attempt which claimed the life of another man earlier this year, has been spotted with his cousin Gareth Chubb recently.

Chubb (27), who is a convicted cocaine dealer originally from Keeper Road in Drimnagh, is being closely monitored by gardai because of his suspected involvement in the drugs trade.

While the pair are cousins, Gardaí did not believe they were operating in the same criminal circles previously.





Gareth Chubb and Jason O'Connor

However, they are now monitoring the situation to see if they are working together.

With the threat to O’Connor’s life, he may not see it as any harm to solidify his connection with Chubb.

O’Connor (37), originally from Clonsilla, has been feuding with former Westies member David Goulding in recent years.

A close pal of his was shot dead earlier this year after a gunman mistook him for O’Connor.

Speaking after the shooting, O’Connor said: “There’s going to be f***ing war in this town. Them two aren’t going to see the end of this f***ing week.”

As well as feuding with Goulding, O’Connor was previously at loggerheads with the Real IRA gang led by Alan Ryan. The gang chopped off O’Connor’s trigger finger in an incident in Fairview.

O’Connor and Chubb were spotted out together at a family birthday party last week and sources say O’Connor had been over in Drimnagh visiting Chubb several times recently.

Earlier this year, the Sunday World revealed how Chubb combined business with pleasure by testing a number of high-powered weapons on a firing range during a booze-filled trip to the Czech Republic.

http://www.irishnews.com/opinion/columni...t-force-315909/

Dissident republicans are a spent force.

Shortly after a young ‘dissident’ hit me over the head with a baseball bat, a senior Provo said to me: “Don’t get too carried away with yourself, Bradley. They hit you this time but it is me and my likes that they are really after”. He was dead right.

Both of us knew enough to know the complex dynamics of Irish republicanism. We both knew the fundamentalism that accompanies any battle for the soul of that militant tradition. Because I was on the Policing Board, I was an incarnation of the clash between the Provos entering politics and the dissident rump who viewed that decision as an act of betrayal. In the passion and the depth of that battle, I was a sideshow.

That is one of the big issues that hasn’t gone away. It was at the heart of the recent killings in Belfast that led to a convoluted but accurate assessment by George Hamilton, the Chief Constable, and that, in turn, led to the political spat between Nesbitt and Robinson. It is surely only in Ireland that something that can only be resolved within the politics of nationalism/republicanism should, instead, be the battle ground on which unionist politicians fight for moral superiority.

Mike Nesbitt may have done us a favour by insisting that the ongoing presence of militant republicanism be more adequately addressed than it has been up to now but he should also know the import and the weight he carries in this hundred year old dispute. He should know that, like myself, he is a sideshow.

It would be a great contribution to the future of Ireland if the dissident republicans had the wit and the honesty to admit that they have lost the battle. It is ten years since my honest Provo told me I was a sideshow. We both knew then that the dissidents had a few years to replace the Provos as a militant machine and as a political and social presence in the heartlands of nationalism and republicanism. They have failed on all fronts. They have fractured too much and too often. They are suspected of having too many shady characters who wouldn’t stand up to much temptation. They are seen as being massively infiltrated by the security people in the north and the south. Apart from a few skirmishes in pubs and the recent tragic murders in Belfast, they have not really confronted the Provos and they certainly haven’t replaced them.

At their least effective they are an irrelevance; at their most effective they are a stone in the shoe that makes things a bit less comfortable than they should be. Taking everything into account, it is time to throw in the towel.

And to be fair to the dissidents, they have good insight into the competence and the ruthlessness of their opponents. It takes that combination of competence and ruthlessness to plan and achieve a scenario that when the dissidents overstepped the mark, the ‘ghosts’ of the Provos moved in their usual deadly manner to face them down. The difference this time is that the ‘ghosts’ knew that they would be disowned – described as criminals within hours. Killing to save the peace; criminals for the purity of Ireland.

The upshot is that the dissidents are a spent force. They never achieved the traction that would have given them relevance. They are now in the worst of all positions that future violence coming from them is going to be bordering on the psychopathic. It will also put an end to the sham overtures from Sinn Fein to the dissidents to enter into talks with them. The people who have the least moral and political authority to act as persuaders to the dissidents are Sinn Fein. The Irish Government is the only entity that has that authority and competence but, unfortunately, the present government doesn’t understand the substance nor the centrality of the debate and even if they could be persuaded you would suspect that they wouldn’t have the stomach.

The Provos deserve recognition for the efforts they have made to bring militant republicanism to an end. Externally, they have mainly succeeded but within the hearts there still burns a small light to the belief that they are the true inheritors of 1916 and the guardians of the noble aspirations of the Irish nation.

It will take more effort and more time to extinguish that mythical flame. But that notion, too, will have to bow to the will of the Irish people.

http://www.sundayworld.com/news/crimedesk/vinnie-ryan-quizzed-over-regency-attack

Vinnie Ryan quizzed over Regency Attack.

Real IRA bosses quizzed Vinnie Ryan over the AK-47 assault rifles used in the Regency Hotel attacks, according to reports in today's Irish Daily Star.
The guns, which are believed to be the specific AKM PM md 1963/1965 variant of the Ak-47, were supplied to the Provisional IRA by General Gaddafi’s Libya in the 1980s and have been the weapon of choice for dissidents ever since.

Vinnie Ryan (25) who was gunned down in Finglas last Monday, was interrogated over a suspicion that he had helped supply the guns that killed Kinahan mob gangster David Byrne (33).

The Irish Daily Star reports that RIRA chiefs mounted a so-called internal inquiry after the audacious attack on the Kinahan mob, over fears that their weapons were used.

Reports indicate that Ryan was quizzed face-to-face by the RIRA chiefs as his connections in north inner city Dublin were seen to be a cause for concern.

A caller professing to be from the continuity IRA claimed the attack in the days following, saying that it was in revenge for the 2012 murder of RIRA boss Alan Ryan (28)

This statement was promptly debunked by republican sources.

Sources say that Vinnie, who reportedly used a similar AK-47 in the hit on Michael ‘Micka’ Kelly in September 2011, denied providing firearms to gangsters.

It is believed that the inquiry cleared him, but the republican finger of suspicion is now pointing at dissidents linked to him.

http://www.thejournal.ie/gangs-of-dublin-who-are-they-2635230-Mar2016/

Gangs of Dublin: Another shooting, but who’s fighting who?

The killing of Vincent Ryan means gardaí are now contending with two active gangland feuds.

YESTERDAY AFTERNOON 25-year-old Vinny Ryan, younger brother of murdered dissident republican Alan Ryan, was gunned down as he sat in his car in Finglas, Dublin.
He was shot multiple times in the head and upper body and later died in the Mater Hospital.
This was the second attempt on Ryan’s life in the space of three months. In October last year, he was attacked with a knife on Parnell Street while he was with his pregnant girlfriend. He sustained a neck wound but was not seriously injured.
File Photo: Vincent Ryan, brother of murdered Real IRA member Alan Ryan was today shot and killed in Finglas. Vinny Ryan at his brother Alan's funeral.
Source: Eamonn Farrell
Though his murder yesterday comes just a few short weeks after a brazen shooting at a hotel in north Dublin and a retaliation attack in North Strand, it is not thought to be connected to that heated feud between the Kinahan and Hutch families.
Who are the Ryans?
Back in 2012, 31-year-old Alan Ryan was shot dead in Clongriffin. He was well-known to gardaí after taking part in a Real IRA training camp in Meath in 2001 and being convicted for possession of firearms.

Source: Leon Farrell/Photocall Ireland
It was suspected that his murder, which like his younger brother’s, took place in broad daylight, was organised by people known to mob boss ‘Mr Big’.
The feud between Real IRA members and this criminal grouping in the Coolock area was sparked by dissidents extorting money out of drug gangs across the city. A number of criminals were taken out by RIRA for refusing to pay up.
However, nothing is clear cut.
A group which refers to itself as the Criminal Action Force has also taken responsibility for the killings of a number of RIRA members in recent years – including Alan Ryan’s murder.
The RIRA leader’s funeral in 2012 was somewhat of an exhibition with balaclava-clad men and women wearing paramilitary-style uniforms accompanying the hearse.

Source: Eamonn Farrell/Photocall Ireland

Source: Eamonn Farrell
One year on, a significant garda presence was also required for an anniversary march through north Dublin.
Again, the parade was attended by men and women in full RIRA garb, this time including custom-made ties and matching sunglasses.

Source: Leon Farrell/Photocall Ireland

Source: Leon Farrell/Photocall Ireland
For his part, Vinny Ryan was linked to the murder of Michael ‘Micka’ Kelly in 2011 and he is believed to have been a target of Mr Big’s gang for some time.
Links to the Kinahan-Hutch feud
Though this shooting comes soon after the murders of David Byrne of the Kinahan gang and Eddie Hutch – brother of Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch – it is a separate tit-for-tat feud and not believed to be linked to those killings.

Source: RollingNews.ie
A massive garda operation has been taking place all across Dublin city, and particularly in north Dublin, since those two murders. The Kinahan drug cartel was targeted in retaliation for the murder of The Monk’s nephew Gary Hutch in Spain last year.
Byrne, an associate of Kinahans, was shot dead at the Regency Hotel last month and two other men were injured. In a revenge attack, gunmen burst into the home of Eddie Hutch in North Strand just days later and shot him dead.
Gardaí are still anticipating further shootings in this feud but after yesterday, they now have two gangland battles in Dublin to contend with.