GANG BOSS

Charlie Bowden killed Veronica, he pumped five or six bullets into her, says John

Gilligan in shock new murder claim

• Published: 8:00, 17 Sep 2023
• Updated: 14:51, 17 Sep 2023

JOHN Gilligan has sensationally claimed that supergrass Charlie Bowden was the man who pulled the trigger and murdered Veronica Guerin.

The gang boss saved his wildest claim yet for the final episode of a Virgin Media documentary series about his life and crimes.

Bowden was the first person in Irish history to turn State’s witness and the first to enter Witness Protection. He and his wife were relocated abroad.

Bowden, along with Russell Warren and John Dunne, were granted amnesty after becoming the chief witnesses in the four trials connected to Guerin’s murder in 1996.

Guerin was shot six times by one of the two men on a motorcycle that pulled up next to her car at a traffic light on the Naas dual carriageway on Dublin’s outskirts.

Bowden implicated Gilligan, Paul Ward, Patrick “Dutchy” Holland and Brian Meehan, who is the only person serving time for her murder. Bowden admitted supplying the gun that was used to kill her.

However Gilligan claims Bowden was the man who killed the reporter, on the orders of gangland figure John ‘The Coach’ Traynor.

He said: “Charlie Bowden killed Veronica Guerin. He pumped five or six bullets into her.

“Brian Meehan told me and he told me he was on the bike. And he told me the reason why they done it — (John) Traynor told them she was printing a story that he was dealing in heroin.”

He claimed that Veronica was offered £100,000 by gangster Traynor, who was a friend of his, to drop the story.