It was a ghoulishly rapid chronicle of a death foretold. One of the Irish republic’s most infamous criminals was shot dead less than 12 hours after his death was predicted in a local tabloid.
Dublin bank robber John Daly was killed as he sat in a taxi with three other men in the north of the city on Sunday night. Daly was singled out by a lone gunman who fired five shots into his head.
The killing had been expected — earlier that day the Irish Star on Sunday warned that Daly was about to be assassinated. Daly had just been released from prison after serving a nine year sentence for armed robbery. His death also highlights again the ruthlessness of the ongoing Irish gangland wars.
The 27-year-old Daly had been warned that his life was in danger and was given personal security advice. Earlier on Sunday armed police officers patrolled the streets around where he lived.
However, he chose to ignore their advice to stay indoors and instead went drinking in Dublin city centre, from where he was followed back to Finglas, north Dublin.
Detectives investigating the murder later found a burnt-out dark coloured jeep nearby which they believe was used as the getaway vehicle.
Earlier this year Daly gained national notoriety in May after he called into an Irish radio station from prison. Daly used a cellphone to harangue a local crime journalist on RTE’s Liveline programme. His use of cellphone from jail prompted national outrage. In subsequent searches of prisons across Ireland, the police found more than 2 000 cellphones which had been smuggled into prisons. In some cases the phones were used to organise hits and run empires on the outside.
On Monday, Irish opposition leaders warned that Daly’s murder would spark a fresh wave of gangland killing in Dublin. The Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern, said that after the latest murder it was time society stopped tolerating casual violence on Ireland’s streets. Irish Labour party justice spokesperson Pat Rabbitte said that out of 137 gangland murders since 1998 only just under 15% have resulted in convictions.
Gangland warfare is fuelled in large part by the huge profits being made from drug dealing in the republic. Ireland is now a major stop-off point for international drug traffickers seeking to supply the United Kingdom and European markets.
Cocaine use is so widespread in Ireland that earlier this month a new book on Irish middle-class drug culture caused a political storm. Questions were raised in Parliament as to the identity of an unnamed minister who confessed to the author of The High Society, Justine Delaney-Wilson, that he regularly snorted cocaine. – Guardian Unlimited Â