BACKGROUND:Craig White is the first man to be convicted of one of the many murders linked to Dublin's worst gangland in-fighting, writes CONOR LALLY, Crime Correspondent
WHEN CRAIG White (23) and gunman Paddy Doyle (27) launched a fatal gun attack on Noel Roche (27) in Clontarf in November 2005, gardaí were already investigating the gangs to which all three were aligned.
Across the city in Firhouse less than 48 hours earlier, two men – Darren Geoghegan (26) and Gavin Byrne (30) – were shot dead after being ambushed in a car. The killings, like that of Roche, were linked to a gun feud between rival drugs gangs in Drimnagh and Crumlin in southwest Dublin.
In two days in November, the body count from the feud jumped from four to seven.
Gardaí were braced for more violence. Extra patrols were laid on and gun searches carried out.
For a time, there was relative calm but, since then, the feud has spiralled at times out of control. Twelve people have now been murdered, two of them this year.
Anthony Cannon (26) from Dublin’s south inner city was shot twice in the head in Ballyfermot 12 days ago. Séamus O’Byrne (27), from Drimnagh, was shot outside a house in Tallaght on March 13th. O’Byrne was a member of the same gang as Cannon and Roche.
The Crumlin-Drimnagh feud began in 2000 when a 20-year-old drug dealer was accused by his associates of supplying information to gardaí that led to a multimillion cocaine and ecstasy haul.
That man, who cannot be named at this time, was brutally attacked by those who wrongly believed he was an informer.
The incident split a large group of drug dealing associates in Crumlin and Drimnagh into two gangs. They have been feuding ever since.
John Roche was 24 when he was shot dead in Kilmainham in March 2005.
He was the third victim of the feud. He was a brother of Noel Roche who would be murdered by White and Doyle later that year. Doyle, from the north inner city, was effectively a contract killer.
When Noel Roche was spotted by the rival gang in the Point at a Phil Collins concert on November 15th, 2005, he left in a hurry.
But Doyle and White were called to try and track down Roche’s car coming from the venue and shoot him. White drove and Doyle pulled the trigger, gardaí believe.
White is also believed to have helped organise the contract killing of Latvian mother of two Baiba Saulite in Swords, Co Dublin, in November 2006.
She was murdered by a syndicate of Dublin and Limerick criminals on behalf of a man known to her.
Gardaí believe White was at the scene of the murder and may have acted as a spotter for the killer.
Doyle was one of a number of suspects for the double shooting of Geoghegan and Byrne in Firhouse two days before he shot dead Noel Roche.
They were shot as part of an internal row within their faction of the Crumlin-Drimnagh gangs.
Doyle decided to leave the country for Spain almost immediately, fearing he was going to be killed.
He was shot dead in Spain 18 months ago as part of a drugs row there.