Shooting victim Lawlor ‘set up in Tesco car park’
Court hears of meeting as suspect fights curfew
GANGLAND boss Robbie Lawlor was murdered at an appointment arranged in a supermarket car park, a court heard yesterday.
Detectives claimed he met a suspect to exchange cash and agreed to a follow-up call at a house in North Belfast. Lawlor, 36, was shot dead the next day when he went to the city’s Ardoyne area.
Details emerged as a man on police bail over the killing on April 4 failed in a bid to have his curfew removed. The suspect, also aged 36, has not been charged with any offences connected to the murder.
But a detective inspector told Belfast Magistrates Court he is believed to be the man who met Lawlor at a Tesco car park in
Detectives at Belfast house Crumlin, Co Antrim, 24 hours before the killing. Cash was exchanged and arrangements made for Lawlor to call at a house on Etna Drive the following day.
The detective said: “Robert Lawlor did attend that appointment and when he arrived, he was met by a gunman who exited [the address] and shot him dead in broad daylight.” He was hit several times and died at the scene. Stray bullets also struck a car parked outside the property, narrowly missing one of Lawlor’s associates.
According to police it was sheer good luck that others in the street were not hurt or killed.
Originally from Dublin, Lawlor was widely reported to have been heavily involved in a feud between rival Drogheda-based factions.
He had been linked to the abduction and murder of 17-year-old Keane Mulready-woods in January. Police stressed the scale of the probe into Lawlor’s killing.
The detective added: “This murder is directly linked to a feud between several organised crime gangs originating out of the Republic of Ireland.”