Caught on camera - the moment gunman blasts gangster and flees.
KEN FOY CRIME CORRESPONDENT – 27 MAY 2015 03:00 AM
This chilling image shows the moment a gunman flees just seconds after the murder of gangster Christopher Zambra in broad daylight last year.
CCTV images released by gardai to RTE's Crimecall programme this week show the masked gunman running at speed just seconds after he shot notorious criminal Zambra (39) eight times at Cooley Road in Drimnagh on May 4, 2014.
The killer's face is disguised with a balaclava and he is wearing a dark jacket, jeans and white runners.
Other images show the gunman firing at Zambra from a stolen Nissan Qashqai after the gangster was followed from his home at Galtymore Road in Drimnagh on the May bank holiday weekend last year.
A large number of bullets were fired at him while he was still in his Audi car and as he tried to flee. He collapsed outside a house and died in front of horrified children who were playing nearby.
Six shots were initially fired from the handgun into the Audi and Zambra, who was on his own in the car, climbed into the front passenger seat and stumbled out of the vehicle.
Shots hit the windscreen and more blasted out the driver's window. Zambra ran along the pavement and into the garden of a house three doors away.
He then collapsed in the garden and the gunman fired two further shots into his face.
Gardai have also released footage of the getaway driver fleeing from Benmadigan Road, a short distance from the shooting after he torched the vehicle which had been stolen in Kildare some weeks earlier and in which the handgun used in the fatal shooting was discovered.
Two arrests were made last September as part of the investigation which is being led by gardai based in Sundrive Road Garda Station.
However, neither of these men were the hitman or getaway driver and it is suspected that they stalked the victim in the days before he was shot.
RUTHLESS
Fingerprint evidence linked the Dublin men to vehicles used as part of the murder and one of the arrested suspects is a 41-year-old man based in Clondalkin.
He is also suspected of involvement in a ruthless tiger kidnapping in Leinster in which a family were tied up.
He has around 20 previous convictions and is facing trial in relation to a very serious crime.
A 28-year-old man was the other man arrested last September after officers raided his home in Kimmage.
He is not as well known to gardai as the older suspect but has a previous conviction for a serious assault in Dublin city centre and was previously convicted of being in a stolen car.
Both men were released without charge and it is understood gardai have plans to arrest more people as part of the lengthy investigation.
At Dublin Coroner's Court last August, the opening of the inquest into his death heard that Zambra died as a result of "internal injuries due to gunshot wounds to the chest".
Zambra was acquitted in June 2013 of the February 2009 murder of drugs trafficker John Carroll who was shot dead at a pub in the Coombe.
