THE VICTIM of the Republic’s latest gun murder was a member of a large drugs gang and was himself suspected of carrying out at least one killing.
Seán Winters, (42) originally from Raheny, north Dublin, was shot dead outside the gated apartment block where he lived in Portmarnock in the north of the city.
He was gunned down on Station Road near the entrance to the Links apartment complex at about 10.30pm on Sunday.
Locals reported hearing a scuffle – or running – outside the building and then the gunfire that killed Winters on the side of the road. The scene was sealed off and Winters’s body was left on the road until yesterday morning when Deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis visited the area to carry out a preliminary examination.
A postmortem later revealed Winters had been shot twice in the head with a 9mm handgun.
Gardaí believe a silver VW Passat with a 98 OY registration, which was found on fire at Templeview Close, Coolock, shortly after the attack, was used by the killers.
Almost immediately after news of the murder emerged, 10 suspects, three women and seven men, aged between 24 and 56, were arrested.
Of these, six were detained in a house in Clarehall, about a mile from the murder scene, and four were arrested in a car in nearby Donaghmede.
They were being held under section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act and can be held for 72 hours without charge.
The nucleus of the group comprises members of a family from Donaghmede previously linked to the Provisional IRA but now aligned to the Real IRA.
The group is involved in an ongoing dispute with criminal elements over the supply of doormen to pubs in Dublin. That row almost claimed its first victim in July when a shooting at the Players Lounge in Fairview resulted in the serious wounding of a doorman and two patrons.
Gardaí investigating the murder of Winters are now trying to establish if his killing is linked to the same row over the supply of pub doormen and related extortion.
However, Winters was a known drug dealer and his links to organised crime are also being closely studied for a motive for his murder.
He was the chief suspect in the murder of Anthony Jenkinson (28), who was found beaten to death in St Anne’s Park, Raheny, in April, 2001.
Winters was also a cousin of Noel Deans (27) who was shot dead in Coolock in January.
Gardaí are trying to establish if Winters was planning revenge against those who had murdered his cousin and may have been killed to prevent any such revenge attack.
Gardaí have ruled out any link between Sunday night’s murder and a murder attempt in Killester, north Dublin, on Saturday morning when 63-year-old convicted drug dealer Eamon Kelly escaped unhurt after his would-be attacker’s gun jammed.
Winters was a member of a drugs crime gang based in the Donaghmede and Baldoyle areas.
One of the leading members of this gang, David Lyndsay (38) and his friend Alan Napper (39) – both from Baldoyle – went missing in July 2008 and are presumed murdered.
Another member of the gang, Paul “Burger” Walsh (29), Foxhill Green, Baldoyle, had cash and property valued at €600,000 confiscated by the Criminal Assets Bureau.
Supt Mark Curran, who is heading the investigation into Winters’s murder, appealed for anyone who was walking or travelling near the crime scene on Sunday night to come forward.