Seventh man to be sentenced over involvement in failed Kinahan murder plot

Eoin Reynolds

A Dublin man will become the seventh person to be sentenced for participating in one of the Kinahan cartel's two plots to murder James 'Mago' Gately, an associate of the rival Hutch gang.

Martin Aylmer (35) with an address at Casino Park, Marino, Dublin 3 on Monday pleaded guilty to participation in the plan to murder Gately when the intended victim was living in Northern Ireland between September 7th, 2016 and April 6th, 2017.

The offence comes under Section 72 1 (A) of the Criminal Justice Act 2006 and the indictment states that Aylmer participated in the plot with knowledge of the existence of a criminal organisation and with the intention of enhancing that organisation's ability to carry out the murder.

Mr Justice Tony Hunt, presiding at the three-judge court, adjourned sentencing to April 27th. He also ordered a governor's report from Mountjoy prison.

Gately had been warned in 2016 by gardaí of a threat to his life from criminals who believed him to be involved in the Regency Hotel murder of Kinahan cartel associate David Byrne in February 2016.

Gardaí put in place a surveillance operation and uncovered the murder plan in which the would-be assassins used tracking devices to follow Gately and brought in an Estonian hitman named Imre Arakas to carry out the actual murder.

Arakas (63) was jailed by the Special Criminal Court for six years in December 2018 after he admitted to conspiring with others to murder Gately in Northern Ireland between April 3rd and 4th, 2017. Gardaí were watching Arakas from the moment he arrived in Dublin on April 2nd.

In another attempt on his life, Gately survived being shot five times as he sat in his car at a Topaz petrol station on the Clonshaugh Road in north Dublin on May 10th, 2017.