IRA guns said to be behind Dublin gangland murder
Irish premier challenges Gerry Adams over AK-47s used in killing, as man dies in another shooting
ENDA KENNY, the Irish premier, has suggested guns that were supposed to have been “put beyond use” as part of the peace process were still in circulation and were used in a Dublin murder last week.
Last night, a man named locally as Eddie Hutch senior was shot dead in Dublin’s north inner city, apparently in retaliation for last Friday’s shooting at the city’s Regency Hotel.
The victim, in his 50s, was shot at around 7.45pm at Poplar Row in Dublin’s North Strand area. Tensions among rival gangs have been high following the assassination of the nephew of Eddie’s brother Gerry, Gary Hutch, in Spain last September.
The Taoiseach cast doubt on a key pillar of the Good Friday Agreement when he referred to reports that AK-47 assault rifles used in the shooting may have been brought to Ireland by the Provisional IRA.
He called on Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein leader, to comment on the reports, which noted that the guns appeared to be Romanian-made AK-47s of a type once favoured by the IRA.
Mr Adams angrily rejected the claims, saying “the IRA are gone and their weapons are gone”, but Mr Kenny’s comments reflected concerns that some IRA terrorists who did not approve of the peace process hid weapons rather than handing them in to be decommissioned. Three gunmen dressed as policemen and carrying AK47s stormed a boxing weigh-in at a Dublin hotel on Friday, when they shot dead David Byrne, 33, described as one of the city’s most notorious gangland criminals. Two others stood guard outside with pistols and a sixth acted as getaway driver.
Police initially said they believed the shooting was the result of a feud be- tween rival gangs, but yesterday the Continuity IRA, a dissident republican group, said it had carried out the attack in retaliation for the murder of Alan Ryan, in Dublin in 2012.
Ryan was a member of the Real IRA and Byrne was said to have been involved in his killing.
Police said they were keeping open mind about the motive.
Photographs of the gunmen entering the building showed them carrying a distinctive variant of the AK-47 with a wooden handhold under the forestock.
Margaret Gilmour, a senior associate fellow and terrorism expert at the Royal United Services Institute, said it was likely that Irish police would be able to identify the source of the weapons from the photographs. “They will know what type of weapons the IRA were using. They can see the era of the weapon and they will know what type of weapons are around now,” she said. “They will also have a pretty good idea of who has done this, because it’s a small pool of people who belong to these organisations.
“We know that a small group of people didn’t approve of handing guns over to be decommissioned and that there will be guns still in circulation that were used by the IRA.
“But that doesn’t mean this incident should be compared to what was happening in the Troubles. It is very much tied up with criminal activity, and the people of Ireland are not interested in supporting these groups.”
In 2005 General John de Chastelain, the head of the body charged with decommissioning IRA weapons, said he was satisfied the process had destroyed “the totality of the IRA’s arsenal”.
Mr Kenny brought that into question when he called on Mr Adams to make a statement on reports that the guns used in the attack “may well be very similar if not the same cargo that came in from abroad with the Provisional IRA a number of years ago”.