Gardai investigate possible drugs link to murder

Gardaí investigating the murder of a 29-year-old man in west Dublin yesterday are examining links to a major Dublin drug dealer as a possible motive for the killing.

The dead man, Joseph Rafferty, was shot twice by a lone gunman as he left his apartment in the Ongar Park housing estate near Clonsilla at around 9.15am.

He was not known as a major player in the drugs trade but was close to a well-known drug dealer from south Dublin.

Mr Rafferty, a single man, had recently had a relationship with a former girlfriend of the south Dublin man. Detectives investigating the killing are now examining this link very closely.

However, a number of senior Garda sources said it was still too early to focus on one line of inquiry.

Some of Mr Rafferty's associates have been involved in recent years in a feud with rival criminal elements which has claimed at least three lives.

The dead man's sister, Sandra, spoke briefly to reporters at the murder scene yesterday. When asked if she had any idea why her brother was targeted, she replied: "No, we don't know. I got a phone call this morning. They said it was on the news. I had heard nothing."

Mr Rafferty, who has a six-year-old child, was shot twice in the upper body as he was leaving his apartment at Delhurst Terrace in the Hayward apartment complex in Ongar Park, halfway between Clonsilla and Clonee, Co Meath.

He was originally from the south inner city but had been living at the west Dublin apartment with another man for about a year. He had a number of convictions for road traffic offences and was believed to have been involved in the hijacking of a lorry about eight years ago.

Gardaí believe he was shot by one gunman, who fled the immediate vicinity on foot after the fatal attack.

The gunman struck as Mr Rafferty was about to get into his UK-registered white Mercedes van and make his way to the city centre where he worked as a courier.

When he was shot he tried to run back into the apartment but fell on to a grass verge just a few feet from his van and died almost immediately. His remains lay at the scene until the Deputy State Pathologist, Dr Michael Curtis, arrived to carry out his preliminary examination at around 2.30pm.

A small group of the dead man's relatives and friends arrived at the scene, and some wept when they saw the body lying on the grass covered by a red blanket.

Gardaí believe the attacker was loitering in the area in anticipation of Mr Rafferty leaving his apartment.

They are working on the theory that the gunman had familiarised himself with the new housing estate and may have waited outside the apartment block on a number of occasions in the last week or two in an effort to determine what time Mr Rafferty left for work.

The gunman was wearing a woolly hat and a reflective jacket. However, he was not masked.

Supt Gabriel McIntyre of Lucan said the attacker was probably wearing the jacket to pass himself off as a construction worker from the many building sites in and around the Ongar Park estate.

"It would have been an ideal disguise for him. He probably would have been here on other mornings. We feel anybody contemplating a shooting like this would have done their homework," Supt McIntyre said.

One local woman, Veronica McPartlan, said a neighbour of hers had heard the two shots but "made nothing of it" at the time. "It's generally a quiet area, I'm very surprised to see this," she said.

Members of the Garda Technical Bureau carried out an examination of the scene yesterday. Mr Rafferty's van was also forensically examined. Gardaí conducted house-to-house inquiries in Ongar Park throughout yesterday.

Gardaí at Lucan are anxious to speak to anybody with information or who may have seen a man loitering near the apartment block over the last fortnight.