Investigation into gangland murder of Eddie Hutch has been 'long and complex', inquest told

Detective Inspector Aidan Flanagan told a sitting of Dublin District Coroner’s Court that the Garda inquiry into the fatal shooting of Eddie Hutch (58) six and a half years ago was still ongoing.

Mr Hutch, a father of five and taxi driver from Poplar Row, Ballybough, Dublin 3 was approached by several gunmen as he pulled up in his taxi outside his home in Dublin’s north inner city on February 8, 2016.

A silver BMW 3 series vehicle, which was believed to be the getaway car, was found abandoned a short distance away on St Patrick’s Parade in Drumcondra.

The fatal shooting occurred just three days after members of the Hutch gang killed a member of the rival Kinahan cartel, David Byrne, in a daring raid on a boxing weigh-in at the Regency Hotel in Whitehall.

Byrne’s death sparked a major killing spree by the Kinahan gang of relatives and associates of The Monk whom they believed planned the attack on the Regency Hotel in revenge for the killing of his nephew, Gary Hutch, in Spain in September 2015.

Eddie Hutch was the first of six people associated with the Hutch gang to be murdered by the Kinahan gang in 2016 in the aftermath of the Regency Hotel shooting in a gangland feud which has claimed a total of 18 lives to date since the killing of Gary Hutch.

The opening of the inquest into Eddie Hutch’s death in July 2016 heard a post-mortem had confirmed that Mr Hutch had died as a result of gunshot wounds to the head.

A brother of the deceased, John Hutch, who formally identified the victim’s body, subsequently died as a result of a fall at his home in Dublin in July 2019.

Det Insp Flanagan of Mountjoy Garda Station applied for a further 12-month adjournment of the inquest under Section 25 of the Coroners Act 1962 as criminal proceedings are still being considered in the case.

He told the coroner, Clare Keane, on Thursday that members of Mr Hutch’s family were fully aware of the status of the investigation and were supportive of the decision to seek a further adjournment.

Dr Keane granted the application and adjourned the case until September 7, 2023 for mention.

It is believed that Mr Hutch was targeted by members of the Kinahan crime cartel solely because he was the brother of Gerry Hutch.

Although he had a number of convictions for minor criminal offences for small-time fraud and shoplifting, Mr Hutch was not regarded as having any involvement in serious crime.

However, he was suspected of helping to launder some of the proceeds of crimes organised by his brother and he was the subject of an investigation by the Criminal Assets Bureau in the late 1990s.