Brother of Dublin crime boss killed in growing gangland feud

He was shot a number of times and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Garda Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan and senior investigators will hold talks with the minister over the escalating feud.

Journalist with the Irish Independent and Herald Newspapers, Conor Feehan, says the atmosphere in the capital was very tense overnight.

The murder is believed to be revenge for Friday’s shooting at the Regency hotel in Drumcondra, which claimed the life of David Byrne.

She said: “Tonight’s fatal shooting in Dublin is another deplorable example of the ruthlessness of gangland criminals”.

In the immediate aftermath Byrne’s murder was reportedly linked to a gangland feud between major organised crime outfits in Dublin and the south of Spain with speculation that it was retaliation for the murder of 34-year-old Hutch at the Angel de Miraflores apartment complex, in September last year.

Frances Fitzgerald was asked why Gardai did not have the intelligence suggesting an attack was imminent – especially since it had been reported in the media gang members would be present at the weigh-in.

The Irish republican militant group the Continuity IRA on Monday claimed responsibility for a shooting at a boxing event in Dublin last week that left one person killed and two injured.

But that group, the Continuity IRA, issued a second statement Monday night saying that it was not involved.

He is the brother of Gerry Hutch, a notorious criminal in Dublin in the late 1980s and 90s who was nicknamed the Monk.

Gardai say they’re keeping an open mind about dissident republican claims that they’re responsible for the Regency shooting.

In the late 1990s he was targeted by the Criminal Assets Bureau over allegations he helped his brother Gerry Hutch, known as The Monk, to launder the proceeds of robberies. His faction has been blamed for Friday’s attack on a boxing weigh-in at a Dublin hotel, where a henchman from a rival gang led by the Spain-based Christy Kinahan was targeted and killed.

The brazen shooting took place despite the fact extra armed gardai have been deployed to the street of Dublin to prevent further bloodshed.

Last Friday a six-strong gang, three armed with AK47s and two with handguns, attacked members of the Kinahan gang in the Regency Hotel as revenge for Hutch’s murder.