Gardaí to investigate victim's links to drug trade

Gardaí investigating the murder of a Dubliner in the west of the city on Wednesday night are investigating his links to the drugs trade as a motive for his killing.

Robbie O'Hanlon (25), originally from Arthur Griffith Park, Lucan, was shot three times by a masked gunman as he finished playing a game of soccer in the Dublin City Services sports club, off Coldcut Road in Clondalkin.

The victim was leaving the pitch at about 8pm when a man stepped from bushes and fired three shots from a handgun, wounding him in the head, while a group of witnesses looked on.

The killer escaped through the nearby Wheatfield and Oatfield estates. The murder investigation is being led by Supt Pat Clavin of Ronanstown Garda station.

The dead man was well known to gardaí. He was a drug dealer and had a number of convictions.

He had also been a witness in a gangland murder trial after his friend, Clondalkin man Jonathan O'Reilly (25), was shot dead outside Cloverhill Prison in April 2004.

Two men are currently serving life for the murder. Their trial in 2005 was told that on the day of the killing, Mr O'Hanlon had suggested to Mr O'Reilly and two other men that they go in his car to Liffey Valley shopping centre.

On the way Mr O'Hanlon said he wanted to stop at Cloverhill Prison to leave clothes for an inmate. When he was gone from the vehicle a motorbike pulled up alongside the parked car. The pillion passenger fired the fatal shots into Mr O'Reilly through the passenger window.

When Mr O'Hanlon testified at the trial it was put to him that it was his idea to stop at the jail and that he had deliberately parked his car with the passenger side exposed to the road making it easy for the gunmen to shoot Mr O'Reilly.

"Watch your mouth," he told defence barrister John Phelan. "This fella is making accusations against me. He's also putting my life in danger.

"You're putting ideas in people's heads, you're brain dead. You're talking s**t."

When asked by another barrister how he could buy a Volkswagen Golf car for €13,000 cash and a BMW coupé for €6,250 cash when he did not work, he told him to mind his own business.

He continued: "Don't f**king raise your voice at me, you f**king thick."

The court was told Mr O'Reilly's murder was linked to a row at the Glue Pot pub in Clondalkin in 1996. Another man involved has also been shot dead.

Garda sources said while Mr O'Hanlon may have been shot in retaliation for Mr O'Reilly's murder, they believed he would most likely have been targeted before now if that was the motive.

"We couldn't rule it out but why would you wait three years?" asked one source.

Gardaí believe the motive is most likely connected to his recent drug-dealing activities in Lucan, Clondalkin and other parts of west Dublin. He had also recently clashed with a criminal in his 30s from Clondalkin.

Mr O'Hanlon was released from prison last summer after serving a two-year sentence for assaulting his former partner in a frenzied attack in 2004, a woman with whom he had twin girls.

He gained access to her house by punching in glass panels on her hall door at 2.30am one morning when she returned from an evening out.

O'Hanlon beat her on the head with a can opener. He also used a sweeping brush to beat her until the handle broke. He then took a knife and held it against her throat.

Gardaí are appealing to anybody with information on the murder to contact them at Ronanstown Garda station on (01) 666 7700.