Gilligan plots last-ditch appeal as sale of estate nears
THE sale of gangster John Gilligan’s equestrian centre and 80 acres of land in Co Kildare is understood to be near completion.
Gilligan, 61, met lawyers on Thursday in the Four Courts in an attempt to drum up yet another appeal against the sale of the centre and lands but emerged in an angry mood after apparently being told the matter is settled.
The sale was allowed after the Supreme Court ruled last November that the Garda Criminal Assets Bureau (Cab) had the right to seize the property and offer it for sale.
Gilligan mounted repeated appeals against the seizure over the 17 years he spent in jail.
The property was put on the market in September and several parties expressed interest. The auctioneers and gardai are making no comment on the progress of the sale, but it is understood there is a buyer for the lands and equestrian centre, and the sale should be completed this week.
Gilligan’s wife, Geraldine, remains in a bungalow on an adjacent four-acre site to the lands being sold.
The house and grounds were also seized by the Cab but remain the subject of another appeal to the Supreme Court.
Gilligan was in the Law Library for four hours last Thursday in what is understood to have been an attempt to establish a case to prevent the sale of the centre and lands on the grounds that there are pending legal challenges. No challenge was lodged by the end of last week.
Gilligan has been staying with his brother, Thomas, in Clondalkin in west Dublin, but has visited the bungalow home at Jessbrook, where his wife has been living,, several times since his release from prison two weeks ago.
Gardai say Gilligan is obsessed with the retention of the centre, which he built with money from his drug trafficking.
He spent more than €1.5m, all in cash, on developing the 3,000-seat arena with adjoining stables and outbuildings.
By the time of his arrest in connection with the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin in 1996, the equestrian centre and lands had a potential value of €5m, but the degraded buildings and lands were put on the market this year with an asking price of only €550,000.
Since his release, Gilligan has had no associations with criminals in Dublin. His former associates John Traynor and Peter ‘Fatso’ Mitchell are abroad and his main lieutenant, Brian Meehan, is still serving life for the murder.
Gardai are confident that Gilligan has no place in Dublin’s organised crime scene. He has no known associations within any of the main drugs gangs in the city. They believe he is determined to remain in Dublin while the final appeal remains before the Supreme Court.
Gardai also believed Gilligan lost most of the million s he amassed from importing tonnes of cannabis between 1993 and 1995, but that he still has money in off-shore bank accounts which were never traced by Cab.
Officers travelled to the Caribbean island of St Lucia, where he was known to have travelled, but could not find any bank accounts linked to him.
Gilligan frequently travelled on fake passports and it was found impossible to know where he may have deposited the large amounts of cash that he was known to have made. When arrested at Heathrow in October 1996, four months after the murder, he had £330,000 in cash in a suitcase and he also had a false passport.