Major criminal and suspected shooter rearrested in prison for feud murder of Eddie Hutch

• 29m ago

One of the country’s most feared gangland criminals has been arrested in prison today and is being questioned about the murder of ‘The Monk’s brother Eddie Hutch in February 2016.

The 42-year-old, who is originally from Finglas, is suspected of being one of the two gunmen in the attack which was organised by the Kinahan cartel as a revenge killing just days after the Regency Hotel bloodbath.

This is the second time that the gunman has been arrested in relation to the long-running probe by officers based in the north inner city.

He was arrested in his cell in Mountjoy Prison earlier today and must be returned to jail before any decision is made to potentially charge him in the case.

Detectives believe the arrested criminal and another gangster from the north inner city were the shooters in the gruesome murder.

Despite up to nine arrests in the case, no criminal charges have yet been brought, but senior sources have described tonight’s re-arrest as “highly significant”.

“Gardaí have arrested a man in his 40s in connection with a fatal shooting which occurred on Poplar Row in Dublin 3 on 8th, February 2016,” a garda spokesman said tonight.

“The man is currently detained under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984 at a garda station in north Dublin,” he added.

The arrested man is considered a notorious hitman for the Kinahan cartel and is serving lengthy sentences for firearms and other serious offences.

Eddie Hutch (59) was murdered as part of the Hutch/Kinahan feud at his north-inner city home on February 8, 2016, in a revenge attack for the Regency Hotel shooting three days earlier.

His younger brother, Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch, is facing judgment at the Special Criminal Court in just 12 days’ time on the charge of the murder of Kinahan cartel gangster David Byrne in the Regency attack.

A four man hit-team, including the two gunmen, were involved in the Eddie Hutch murder while several other people are believed to have provided logistical support to the murder gang.

Last September an inquest into Mr Hutch’s murder heard the investigation is proving “long and complex”.

Mr Hutch, a father-of-five and taxi driver from Poplar Row, Ballybough, Dublin 3, was approached by two gunmen as he pulled up in his taxi outside his home in Dublin’s north inner city on February 8, 2016.

A silver BMW 3 series vehicle, which was believed to be the getaway car, was found abandoned a short distance away on St Patrick’s Parade in Drumcondra.

Eddie Hutch was the first of six people associated with the Hutch gang to be murdered by the Kinahan gang in 2016 in the aftermath of the Regency Hotel shooting in a gangland feud which has claimed a total of 18 lives to date since the killing of Gary Hutch.

The opening of the inquest into Eddie Hutch’s death in July 2016 heard a post-mortem had confirmed that he died as a result of gunshot wounds to the head.

A brother of the deceased, John Hutch, who formally identified the victim’s body, subsequently died as a result of a fall at his home in Dublin in July 2019.

It is believed that Eddie Hutch was targeted by members of the Kinahan crime cartel solely because he was the brother of Gerry ‘The Monk’.