A man, whose son was the intended target when holidaymaker Trevor O’Neill was shot dead in Majorca last month, has escaped an attack on his life.
When father-of-three Mr O’Neill was killed, a member of the Hutch family holidaying in the same part of the Spanish island told local police he believed he was the intended target.
On Friday evening, that man’s father himself escaped an effort to kill him at his Dublin home in a gun attack being linked to the ongoing violence by the Kinahan drugs gang against the Hutch family.
So far, 10 men have been shot dead in what has been billed as a feud between the international Kinahan gang and Dublin-based Hutch family, though all of the killings bar one have been carried out by the Kinahan cartel.
The latest attack occurred just before 5.30pm at a house on Drumalee Road, Dublin 7, off North Circular Road.
A gunman approached a member of the Hutch family on the street. The target ran into his back garden and then into his house as the gunman fired shots at him.
Waiting car
There were no reports of injury, though at least five shots were fired, after which the gunman was driven from the scene in a waiting car.
Gardaí later found two firearms in a car abandoned and set on fire at Regal Park, just off Blackhorse Avenue.
A well-known criminal found driving a van in the vicinity was arrested and was on Friday night being held at Store Street Garda station under section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act.
Detectives suspect the arrested man, aged 32, was neither gunman nor getaway driver, but that he had provided the would-be killers with some form of assistance.
Foley attack suspect
The arrested man has been linked to a number of shootings, including the gun attack in 2008 on the veteran Dublin criminal Martin Foley, also known as the Viper.
Foley (65), has been shot and wounded on at least four occasions.
The man being held on Friday night was suspected of carrying out the 2008 attack on Foley outside a gym in Crumlin, south Dublin.
He thought he was dying and called out the name of the suspect, naming him as his attacker, but later refused to give a statement when he returned to full health.
The man suspected of shooting Foley is very close to members of the Kinahan gang based in Dublin.
When Dubliner Trevor O’Neill was shot dead in front of his wife and three young children in Majorca last month, he was mistaken by the gunman for a member of the Hutch family.
Gardaí said they believe this man had stayed at his father’s house at times since his return from Spain.
