Regency Hotel gangster’s home raided by PSNI
Most of AK47-toting gang now identif ied
A DISSIDENT Republican has been identified as one of the men who fled the Regency Hotel attack wearing a flat cap while armed with a handgun.
The man, whose home was raided by PSNI officers this week, has been linked to a punishment shooting in the past and was previously expelled from the Continuity IRA.
He can only be charged by gardaí once a European Arrest Warrant has been secured.
Most of the other gang members believed to have been involved in the audacious Regency attack have also been identified, with the suspect who was dressed as a woman having close links to Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch.
Following the shooting at the Regency, the Irish Mail on Sunday revealed that gardaí were investigating whether the AK-47s used once belonged to the IRA and could have been sourced from dissident republicans.
Informed sources told the MoS the Garda investigation is ‘progressing well’.
Detectives are on alert for further revenge attacks by feuding criminals, which it is feared could take place during upcoming events planned for Dublin. Gardaí are working on the basis that an attack is imminent.
Meanwhile, Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch returned to Dublin for his brother Eddie’s funeral on Friday. In what has been described as a ‘show of weakness’, the criminal arrived at his brother’s funeral disguised in a wig and cap. He hung back in the crowd instead of with the main mourners to avoid being recognised.
He is now the number one target for the Kinahan gang and has been officially warned by gardaí that his life is in danger.
A new policing strategy to try to contain any planned revenge attacks by putting pressure on the feuding gangs got under way following the funeral.
Taxi driver Edward Hutch, 58, was shot dead on February 8 at his home on Poplar Row in Ballybough. The Garda’s chief suspects are a four-man gang that includes two criminal brothers and another two men – one of whom was involved in the attempted murder of John Gilligan, the other in the 2006 murder of Latvian mother-of-two Baiba Saulite.
And DNA found in a getaway car left behind by the killers after the execution of Mr Hutch will be used to determine who the culprits are. The car failed to burn out and gardaí were able to obtain DNA from a petrol canister and balaclavas.
The murder of Edward Hutch was in retaliation for the killing of David Byrne, 33, at the Regency three days earlier. Byrne was a senior lieutenant for the Kinahan crime cartel.