Gerry “the Monk” Hutch will have to flee Ireland because the Kinahan cartel are still desperate to murder him, gardai believe.
And it looks like the 60-year-old has got wind of the cop theory after he was spotted with his bags packed yesterday – shopping bags. Hutch, who was clean-shaven and had a shorter haircut, was pictured heading back into his Clontarf pad with a number of shopping bags as he began his second full day of freedom.
Days after the Dubliner walked free from the Special Criminal Court following his acquitted for the murder of David Byrne, sources told The Star that gardai suspect he will have no option but to leave his homeland. “The threat against him is classified as severe,” a source told us last night.
Read more: Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch sports beard-free new look as he stays in Dublin after acquittal
And, although The Monk has now been photographed around the city twice since Monday, sources say gardai believe he will leave Ireland. One source told us: “We were expecting him to be gone already, but we do believe he will be gone soon. It could be tomorrow, it could be in a few weeks, only he knows. But the threat is so strong, the only conclusion we can draw is that he will disappear.”
Hutch fled Ireland in 2016 after the cartel led by Daniel Kinahan, 44, went on a killing spree following the attack in March of that year on the Regency Hotel that left Byrne dead. It’s believed there was a bounty of more than €200,000 on his head.
He spent years moving around Europe as he desperately tried to stay one step ahead of the Kinahans, who even sent hit squads to the continent. But now that The Monk is a free man and has been found not guilty of the Byrne murder, sources say the cartel will still murder him if they get a chance.
“He is their number one target and that has not changed,” one told us. Gardai believe Hutch, who denied the Byrne murder, is likely to first seek refuge in Spain, either on the mainland or at his Lanzarote bolthole. He is also understood to have property interests in Turkey, the Netherlands and England.
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