Shooters ‘caught red-handed’ af ter attack on truckers

A TRUCK driver was shot five times, including to the head, and another driver was seriously injured in a daylight shooting at a business yard behind Dublin Airport yesterday.

Gardaí allegedly caught the assailants red-handed burning out the getaway car.

A major drug trafficker from Coolock, north Dublin, aged in his early 30s, was last night in custody over the double shooting, which took place in the yard of a trucking company at Killeek Lane in the St Margaret’s area of Swords just after midday.

Another man was also arrested by gardaí alongside the crime boss. The suspected getaway car was discovered burning in the Darndale area of north Dublin, where gardaí found the two suspects standing beside it.

The two victims were sitting in a blue Mercedes car in the yard of a company on Killeek Lane when they were targeted. The double shooting is linked to the Coolock feud, which has so far claimed four lives. One of the victims of yesterday’s attack, from Baldoyle, north Dublin, is fighting for his life.

He was sitting in the driver’s seat of the blue Mercedes and was struck at least once in the head and up to four times in the body, suffering serious injuries.

This truck driver has a previous criminal conviction in the UK for a tachograph offence and driving without a HGV licence.

The other truck driver, understood to be from Ashtown, Dublin, was also struck a number of times and was last night in a serious condition.

Neither of the injured men have serious criminal convictions.

However, close associates of the two men have been blamed for the attempted murder of the Coolock drug trafficker in September. The double shooting is believed to be direct retaliation for this.

In that incident, the drug trafficker was shot at in his native Coolock but the gunman missed.

The ‘highly complex’ Coolock feud has already claimed four lives. Zach Parker was the first victim of the feud, shot dead on January 17, 2017.

Within one week in late May last year, two 22-year-old friends, Seán Little, from Coolock, and Jordan Davis, from Darndale, were shot dead. Another man, Hamid Sanambar, 41, was shot dead days later.

The drug trafficker in custody last night for the double shooting was ‘feuding’ with Little and Davis as part of the Coolock feud.