GERRY Lee, the Dublin drug dealer and robber shot dead at the weekend, was included in a list of criminals threatened by a vigilante group with republican links.
Lee (31) was shot dead at about 7 a.m. on Saturday, at a house in Ferrycarrig Park, Coolock, at the end of a night's partying to celebrate his birthday.
A gunman called at the house and is believed to have asked for Lee by name. Hem shot the drug dealer twice and he died within a short time.
Lee was a close associate of the notorious Dublin criminal known as the "Monk", according to gardai. He was suspected of having taken part in the £3 million raid on the cash centre at Santry last year. Recently he is believed to have been involved in financing drugdealing in the Coolock area.
His was one of 39 names on a "hit list" of Dublin drug dealers and criminals which was sent to a daily newspaper two weeks ago.
Attempts have already been made to kill two other men on that list in recent months. The Dublin criminal figure, Martin Foley, who has survived two attempts on his life in the past four months, is high on the list.
Another man, shot and injured in a pub in the south inner city last month, is also named. One of, the suspects in this case is a man with IRA links from the south inner city.
Gerry Lee's name appeared alongside the brother of the man known as the Monk.
Gardai say they have an open mind on Lee's killing. It is possible he was killed as part of an internal dispute in the city's drugs underworld.
The list contains the names of most of Dublin's infamous criminals, although Lee's associate, the Monk, is absent. Others are frequently referred to in newspaper accounts of the Dublin underworld with a variety of nicknames, including: the "Penguin", "Coach", "Viper", "Pony", "Psycho", "Maradona" and "Cotton Eye". Alongside the real name of the man nicknamed "Coach" is written: "Will be finished off".
Alongside the name of one the Monk's main associates, a violent criminal and drug dealer, who as yet has not been nicknamed by newspapers in Dublin, is written: "Heroin (making £25k a week)".