Gardaí ‘will be ready’ to apprehend garda’s murderers

Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan has said his officers “will be ready” to bring the murderers of Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe to justice when the time comes.

He said detectives were “focusing on a particular direction” in relation to those suspected of shooting dead the father-of-two during a botched robbery in Co Louth last January.

He said the mammoth investigation has so far involved:

* Over 3,200 statements and reports;

* More than 3,600 structured lines of inquiry;

* Collection of 1,000 exhibits.

Det Gda Donohoe, aged 41, was gunned down without warning as a gang of five raided the Lordship Credit Union, outside Dundalk, on Jan 25.

A number of the suspects have fled abroad, including one to the United States, as police on both sides of the border set up a massive investigation.

A number of the leading suspects are from south Armagh.

Commissioner Callinan was speaking at a seminar on organised crime at Dundalk attended by senior staff of both the Garda and the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

Mr Callinan added: “We are working our way through all the outstanding inquiries and we are focusing on a particular direction.

“I’m not going to give any indication as to how close or far away we are from arrests, but needless to say whether it’s going to be short-, intermediate- or long-term we will be ready, if and when an opportunity presents itself, to bring those people to justice.”

He thanked Chief Constable Matt Baggot for all the assistance the Garda had received in the murder investigation.

Mr Baggot said the PSNI would do everything it could to help the Garda apprehend the killers

“There is nowhere we won’t go to bring people to justice. Our work on behalf of Martin and An Garda Síochána is completely open ended. We will pursue every avenue, we will spare no resources, we will make sure we support our colleagues here as fully as we can. That is my commitment.”

The two police chiefs also commented on the range of cross-border investigations into serious crime, including the highly lucrative trades in fuel laundering and cigarette smuggling.

It was on the back of the seizure of nine million cigarettes, worth more than €4m, in Co Louth on Tuesday.

Four people, including a businessman considered to be a kingpin in the cross-border fuel laundering trade, were arrested and questioned.