Robin Schiller

and in relation to the murder of Noel Duck Egg Kerwin, a grandfather who was an innocent target, an innocent murder victim as part of that feud.

He stayed in Dubai, he never came home until Gardaí issued a European arrest warrant for his detention.

An Interpol Red Notice was issued by Interpol for Dubai authorities.

He was arrested there in October 2024 and after a lengthy enough process, it took about six months for that to finalise, he was brought back here in May of last year.

Surprisingly, I suppose, he pleaded guilty, which is rare enough in these gangland offences.

But when he saw in that kind of sentence in here in this week, the weight of the guard level against him, it was described as a circumstantial case, but it was certainly a very strong circumstantial case.

And you can see why he pleaded guilty.

He pleaded guilty to two serious crimes, directing the activities of a criminal organisation that carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

But it took the murder charge off the table.

He was initially charged with the murder of Noel Kirwan.

With that guilty plea accepted by the state, that was taken off.

So it was a win for him in the sense that the possibility of life imprisonment where parole is attached as well, the mandatory life sentence, that was taken off.

And that's where we found ourselves down on Monday morning in the Criminal Courts of Justice.

So there was evidence given from two different Gardaí detective superintendent, David Gallagher of the Gardaí National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau.

They were looking after this conspiracy to murder James Gately in Belfast, Northern Ireland in April 2017.

and then separately Detective Sarge and Donald Daly, who was based in Lucan at the time of Noel Kirwan's murder in December 2016.

And in relation to the Gately plot, there was kind of six strands of evidence.

They relied on CCTV footage, tracking device, as I said there, analysis of sat-nav communications, and these encrypted devices, they're known as pretty good privacy, BlackBerrys, and these were kind of...

the cartel's own servers where they're able to email each other without being, as they thought at the time, without being intercepted by law enforcement.

And these BlackBerry devices, these encrypted messages, they really give a fascinating insight into the mindset of the Kinnan cartel at the time.