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.
