Gardaí believe man found dead in sea off Donegal was attacked, body thrown off cliffs

Gardaí believe a man in his 60s, whose remains were taken from the sea off Donegal early on Monday, was attacked in the county by people who then panicked and then threw his body off Sliabh Liag cliffs the weekend before last.

While two people, a man and a woman in their 30s and 20s, were arrested last week in relation to an alleged assault, they were released without charge. Since then, the remains of the victim, who was missing for over a week, have been discovered.

The unusual inquiry began at the start of last week after gardaí received a report that a man - believed to be in his 60s and from Northern Ireland - had been suffered fatal injuries in an attack and his remains disposed of. That assault was alleged to have taken place in the Sliabh Liag-Killybegs area of Donegal before the body was thrown off Sliabh Liag cliffs.

An investigation into those claims was commenced, resulting in Sliabh Liag, a popular beauty spot, being sealed off for extensive searching after a bloodied blanket was found in the area.

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As the searching was continuing, a 4X4 vehicle was seized by gardaí for forensic examination and a property in Killybegs was also sealed off and examined. That phase of the inquiry last week also resulted in the arrest of the man in his 30s and woman in her 20s, though both were later released without charge.

The remains were discovered off Sliabh Liag early on Monday morning and while a postmortem has now been conducted at Letterkenny University Hospital, gardaí have not released the results “for operational reasons”. However, it is understood the man had suffered injuries consistent with being assaulted.

“An incident room has been established at Ballyshannon Garda station under the direction of a senior investigating officer,” Garda Headquarters, Phoenix Park, Dublin, said in a brief statement on Tuesday.

The Garda investigation team have again appealed to anyone in the vicinity of Sliabh Liag and Killybegs between the afternoon of Saturday, June 24th, and evening of Sunday, June 25th, and “who observed any activity which drew their attention” to come forward. Detectives are trying to establish if the dead man was socialising in those areas the weekend before last.

Line of inquiry

Detectives have made very significant progress in the case, are following a definite line of inquiry and are expected to make more progress very quickly. The victim has not yet been named as the identification process has become protracted. However, he is believed to be a man with links to the drugs trade, though it does not appear his killing was linked to organised crime.

The Irish Times understands blood spatters were found in the vehicle that was seized last week. That blood, as well as the bloodied blanket found in the Sliabh Liag area, were expected to be examined against samples taken from the remains recovered from the sea. Those tests were expected to confirm both the blanket and the vehicle are connected to the killing and were also expected to the confirm the identity of the dead man.

Searchers used a mannequin in their bid to find the man’s body as they faced searching a highly-dangerous body of water off Slieve Liag, which are the scene of Europe’s highest sea cliffs.

In a bid to establish where remains may wash up in the area, searchers launched the mannequin from the top of the cliffs. It is believed it was thrown from close to an area where a blood-soaked blanket was earlier found during the search for the victim when he was still classified as “missing”.

The replacement ‘body’ ended up in the water off the cliffs, resulting in the emergency services focusing their efforts on that area. Gardai and other searchers spent a number of days scanning the water around the cliffs in the hope of finding a body, which was discovered at about 4am on Monday.