The IRA man caught with the three rifles used in the Regency Hotel attack has already been released from prison, we can reveal.
Donegal man Shane Rowan, 44, who was nabbed driving a vehicle carrying the AK-47 type rifles in March 2016, walked free from prison late last year. Rowan, who was also given four concurrent years for IRA membership – was freed in October 2021 – after just five years behind bars.
Sources say he was released due to standard remission on his sentence. Rowan’s name has come to prominence in the past fortnight during the ongoing Special Criminal Court trial of Gerry ‘The Monk’ Hutch.
Read more: Gerry Hutch trial shown CCTV alleged to be of him and Jonathan Dowdall, 15 days after Regency attack
That is because it is now alleged that Hutch and Jonathan Dowdall met with Rowan at his home in Killygordon in Co Donegal on February 20, 2016 –15 days after the Regency Hotel attack. Another revelation from The Monk’s non-jury trial is the allegation that his brother Patsy also met with Rowan –this time on the very evening he was caught with the rifles –March 9, 2016.
Rowan is alleged to have sat in a Toyota Yaris with Patsy Hutch in a car park near Woodies DIY in Malahide industrial estate before he left in the Insignia and was caught by gardai 34 minutes later in the Slane area of Co Meath.
As Rowan’s trial heard in July 2016, he was pulled over by gardai who discovered three assault rifles, as well as three magazines, in the boot of his car. Hutch’s trial has heard how ballistics expert Det Gda David O’Leary was able to determine that cartridge cases found at the Regency Hotel matched three AK-47s seized in Meath.
Through microscopic examination and comparisons, he was able to say the cartridges had been fired from the weapons seized from Rowan’s car. Insp Patrick Boyce told the court that a grey Vauxhall Insignia was stopped and Shane Rowan was the driver.
He told the court gardai opened the boot and found the AK-47 rifles as well as ammunition. Insp Joseph Finnegan, who the court heard at the time was a detective sergeant, also identified the car being driven by Shane Rowan and signalled it to stopwith blue lights and sirens. The driver complied and showed his hands when asked, he added.
Det Gda RoryGuerin of the Special Detective Unit said he was in the escort that took the vehicle to Drogheda Garda Station. There the weapons were recovered along with other items such as cable ties, bags and towels, from inside the car.
Two of the guns were wrapped in t-shirts. The guns were later brought to the ballistic section of Garda Headquarters for further analysis, the court heard. The guns were later found to be the same ones which were used in the Regency Hotel attack.
That was where Kinahan cartel associate David Byrne was blasted to death in the reception area by a tactical team dressed as gardai and armed with the rifles.
A gunman identified as being Tactical One shot Byrne upon running into him inside the lobby area –while Tactical Two fired further shots at him after jumping on top of the reception desk.
The gunmen armed with rifles formed part of a six-man hit team that arrived at the Regency Hotel in a silver van and stormed the building during a boxing weigh-in event.
Their target, mob boss Daniel Kinahan managed to flee the scene while Byrne –a key associate of his cartel –was gunned down. Former Sinn Fein councillor Jonathan Dowdall was earlier this month jailed for four years after admitting facilitating the murder.
His father Patrick was sentenced to two years in connection with the killing –with both men playing a role in the booking of a hotel room used by one of the hit team, ‘Flat Cap’ gunman Kevin Murray.
Jonathan Dowdall has now given a statement to the prosecution and is set to take the witness stand. The court has been told that Dowdall alleges several meet-ups with Gerry Hutch in the days following the Regency Hotel attack, including one in a Dublin park where he claims ‘The Monk’ told him "that he had been one of the team that shot David Byrne in the Regency.”
Prosecuting counsel Sean Gillane told the court on the opening day of the trial that the State will allege that the Regency Hotel attack was “carried out by a group of people –of which Mr Hutch was one.”
The trial at the Special Criminal Court continues next week.
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