LOCAL MAN LINKED TO ATTEMPTED ‘HIT’
McAREAVEY FOUND GUILTY AT SPECIAL CRIMINAL COURT
A Castlebellingham man who helped to destroy a vehicle used in an attempted gangland murder has been found guilty of impeding the apprehension or prosecution of the dangerous criminal who has been convicted of carrying out the hit.
Gary McAreavey (53) of Gort Nua, Station Road, Castlebellingham, Co Louth was found guilty at the Special Criminal Court, which found that he purchased petrol and assisted in the burning out of a Lexus in Dromiskin, County Louth which had been used in the attempted murder on the same day.
The court heard that Caolan Smyth (28) of Cuileann Court, Donore, Co Meath was hired by the Kinahan cartel to murder one of their biggest targets – James ‘Mago’ Gately in May, 2017 but Gately was saved when four of the bullets fired by Smyth hit the bullet proof vest that he was wearing.
The attempted murder happened as Gately (32) sat in his car at the Topaz filling station on the Clonshaugh Road in north Dublin at lunchtime on May 10, 2017.
The high powered Lexus car which Smyth used in the attempted murder had diplomatic plates and was previously owned by the Pakistani embassy.
It is understood that the Kinahan cartel enlisted Smyth for the murder attempt on James Gately because at the time, he had a relatively low profile in terms of organised crime.
The court found that Gary McAreavey was on the phone to Smyth after the shooting, met him in Co Louth with a container of fuel and went with him to the burn site in a remote rural area for the ‘comprehensive destruction’ of the vehicle used.
It also found he lied to the gardaí when he said he didn’t know Caolan Smyth, whose numbers were saved on his phone.
Both men will be sentenced at the non-jury court on January 25.
Presiding judge Mr Justice Tony Hunt said the case against Smyth was beyond any reasonable doubt that he took part in what was intended to be an ‘organised murder’.
The prosecution case relied on mobile phone locations, phone use being tied to the car’s movements and positive Garda identifications of Smyth from CCTV at the filling station.
Shortly after the attempted murder, McAreavey was spotted on CCTV in Castlebellingham buying petrol, which the non-jury court found was used in the ‘comprehensive destruction’ of the getaway car near Dromiskin after Smyth and McAreavey travelled in convoy to the burn site.
The judge said Smyth was involved in ‘an organised hit’ which was unsuccessful because Gately had been forewarned of the danger to his life by gardaí and forearmed, wearing his bulletproof vest.
It was the second attempt on Gately’s life in the space of just six weeks.
A month earlier, Estonian hitman Imre Arakas (62) was arrested by gardaí after they got information that he had flown into the country to murder Gately for a ‘five figure sum’ which was offered by the Kinahan cartel.
Arakas is serving six years in jail for conspiring to kill Gately who was best pals with Gary Hutch – the first victim of the Hutch-Kinahan feud who was shot dead by the Kinahan cartel in Spain in September, 2015.