McDowell issues warning to criminals

Nobody is above the law, Justice Minister Michael McDowell insisted today as gardaí struggled to cope with a murderous surge in gangland violence in Dublin.

Mr McDowell said a man shot dead in an ongoing turf war between two rival crime gangs in the city was killed despite the best efforts of gardaí.

Detectives were this morning hunting the gunmen and the driver of a black Ford Mondeo who escaped on foot after his passenger was shot dead in a bloody ambush on the Clontarf Road in north Dublin last night.

A garda helicopter and dog teams were involved in searches as forensic experts attempted to link the murder to a violent feud which detectives fear has spread from the south of the city where two men were shot dead on Sunday night.

“Nobody is above the law and nobody is below the law,” Mr McDowell said.

“The Garda Siochana have for a number of months now been mounting Operation Anvil.

“Operation Anvil was put in place particularly to combat this particular threat, and the intelligence available to An Garda Siochana at the time that Anvil was put in place, and subsequently, was that the people involved, a small number of people and a number of hangers-on, in this struggle to control turf in south and south-west Dublin were likely to use lethal force on each other.

“Unfortunately, despite all the best efforts of An Garda Siochana to prevent this, that has come to pass.”

Mr McDowell insisted Operation Anvil had been successful despite the latest murder.

“It has apprehended a great, great number of people,” he told RTÉ.

“There have been a significant number of arrests for murder in it, a great number of firearms have been taken out of circulation and a huge amount of resources have gone into it and I can tell you the resources that have been put into it have not been wasted.”

Chief Superintendent Peter Maguire said the driver of the car tried to get into a number of houses in the area as he made a desperate attempt to flee the attackers.

“A large murder investigation is just unfolding,” he said.

“We’re very anxious to trace the origins of this car, we’re very anxious to hear from anyone who saw this car in the area before the incident and anyone that saw the incident taking place.

“At the moment it seems as if there were shots fired into the front passenger window of this car and a man was hit and fatally injured in the passenger seat.

“There was a second man in this car that seems to have departed from the car in haste and tried to gain entrance to houses close by. We’re looking for that man at the moment, we’re looking for any witnesses to the incident.

“We’re also looking for anyone who can tell us who was using the car prior to the incident and who saw the car just immediately before the incident took place.

“We don’t know if the driver of the car was hit. We’re very anxious to speak to him at the moment and we’re very anxious to speak to anybody who wants to speak to us in relation to this.

“We’re worried that the driver could be injured and that he needs assistance.”

Mr Maguire said detectives were examining a number of witness reports that a youth was seen running from a stolen car left abandoned in Furry Park in nearby Killester.

Labour Party justice spokesman Joe Costello said the Government must now treat this problem with the seriousness it deserves.

“The gangs must be targeted and put out of business, as the Taoiseach promised they would,” he said.

“The only way in which these gangs can be put off the streets is through a sustained, high-powered, intensive surveillance and detection operation of the type ordered by the rainbow government after the murder of Veronica Guerin.

“This is demanding in terms of personnel and cost, but it must be done if further murders are to be averted.”

Detectives are investigating whether the shooting is linked to a drugs-related double murder in Firhouse in south-west Dublin on Sunday evening.

Darren Geoghegan, 26, from Lisadell Drive, Drimnagh, and Gavin Byrne, 30, were shot dead in a cold-blooded attack as they sat in a car in a cul-de-sac.

The latest murder, the 18th gangland slaying so far this year and the third in three days, took place as it emerged that one of Ireland’s biggest drug dealers was arrested by police in Belgium.

The man dubbed Ireland’s “Mr Big”, Jim “Chaser” O’Brien, 41, from Limerick, is being held by the Belgian authorities while they prepare a case against him.