Crime boss's killers fail in appeal bid

Five men serving prison sentences for the murder of a notorious Limerick crime boss today had their application to appeal the convictions dismissed.

The Court of Criminal Appeal rejected claims that the case against the gang who killed Kieran Keane and attempted to murder his nephew Owen Treacy was unsafe.

Desmond Dundon (aged 23), Hyde Road; David Stanners (aged 34), Pineview Gardens, Moyross; James McCarthy (aged 27), Delmege Park, Moyross; Christopher Costello (aged 23), Moylish Avenue, Ballynanty Beg and Anthony McCarthy (aged 24), Fairgreen, Garryowen were all sentenced to life behind bars for murder in December 2003.

They were also handed down concurrent terms of 15 years imprisonment for the attempted murder of Treacy and seven years for false imprisonment charges.

The gang were convicted for their parts in the shooting dead of Keane, with a single bullet through the head, and the multiple stabbing of Treacy on an unlit country road at Drombanna outside Limerick in January, 2003.

Lawyers for the five claimed that the case was unsafe on a number of grounds including the influence of the media coverage on the jury, the make up of the jury in the trial, the actions of the trial judge and the non-disclosure of some evidence.

The three-judge Court of Criminal Appeal, Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, presiding, Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne and Mr Justice Brian McGovern, refused the application in their 105-page judgement on the appeal attempt.

Ugly scenes erupted after the judgement was read out with copies of the ruling being flung at the judges while some of the jailed gang and their supporters in the court room spat and shouted verbal abuse at the judges, lawyers and journalists.