8 YEARS FOR KINAHANS MURDER PLOT THUG
‘Enabler’ helped mob to murder friend of Monk
A “TRUSTED enabler” of the Kinahan cartel was jailed yesterday for eight years for helping the mob murder an innocent friend of Gerry “The Monk” Hutch.
Martin Aylmer assisted the Kinahan gang’s attack on Noel “Duck Egg” Kirwan, who had no involvement in crime, in December 2016.
He also helped the mob in the first of two attempts on James “Mago” Gately’s life in April 2017, when the cartel hired Estonian hitman Imre Arakas, known as The Butcher.
That attempt was foiled by gardai who pounced on Arakas, 64, and arrested him in Dublin before he could travel to Belfast and kill Gately.
Investigators suspect both attacks were overseen by senior Kinahan enforcer Sean Mcgovern who is now a fugitive.
Now believed to be in Dubai where the cartel’s headquarters are based, Mcgovern is subject to a European
Warrant for murder as well as directing and participating in a criminal organisation.
Gardai yesterday hailed Aylmer’s convictions as a “significant” blow to a “criminal organisation operating a campaign of murder and violence”.
The Special Criminal Court heard how he made the “schoolboy error” of using his own name and car when he imported tracking devices from the UK that the cartel used in both crimes.
He had pleaded guilty to a similar offence in relation to the attempted murder of Gately.
The court heard both men were targeted because the Kinahan cartel believed they were associated with people involved in the murder of David Byrne at the Regency Hotel in February 2016.
In a previous case, it was heard it was “disturbing” that Mr Kirwan had apparently been shot for no reason other than pictures of him had appeared in the media in the company of a childhood friend and had absolutely no involvement in criminality. Yesterday at the non-jury three-judge court, Mr Justice Tony Hunt sentenced Aylmer to five years for his involvement in the murder of Mr Kirwan.
He was handed a consecutive jail term of five years and four months for his part in the attempted murder of Gately.
Mr Justice Hunt suspended the final two years of the sentence for four years.
Aylmer, with an address at Casino Park, Marino, North Dublin, admitted participating in, or contributing to the murder of Mr Kirwan between October 20, 2016 and December 22, 2016, with the knowledge of the existence of a criminal organisation.
He also pleaded guilty to participation in the plan to murder Gately between September 7, 2016 and April 6, 2017.
Mr Justice Hunt said Aylmer’s conviction was “another lesson in the perils of becoming involved in this organisation”.
Thug Aylmer, 35, is locked up in Mountjoy prison where he is beginning rehabilitation as an “enhanced” prisoner.
It is his third conviction over his logisarrest tical role in helping the Kinahan cartel as they waged war on the streets of Dublin in Ireland’s bloodiest feud.
In 2018, he was sentenced to a little under four years after he pleaded guilty to buying mobile phones for the gang who murdered Michael Barr at the Sunset House in Dublin’s north inner city on April 25, 2016.
That sentence was later increased to six years by the Court of Appeal in a judgment that laid down the principles for sentencing people convicted of participating in offences carried out by criminal organisations.
Yesterday Det Supt Dave Gallagher, hailed the work of his team.
Speaking after the hearing, he said: “The convictions of Martin Aylmer are significant in bringing to account a trusted enabler, without whose support and assistance a violent criminal organisation could not operate a campaign of murder and violence which impacted immensely on families and local communities.”