This Kinahan hitman is recovering – after another cartel gangster threw boiling water on him in prison.
Caolan Smyth, who is serving 20 years for trying to murder Hutch family associate and Criminal Assets Bureau target James “Maggo” Gately for the cartel, was badly injured in the attack on Sunday.
Investigators believe the attack on Smyth (30) in Castlerea Prison in Co Roscommon on Sunday was carried out by another jailed Kinahan goon.
As well as having boiling water thrown in his face, Smyth was also badly beaten – and repeatedly hit with a sock filled with batteries.
Officers are trying to establish a motive for the attack – but it is most likely to be a personal dispute between the two men.
It’s understood Smyth's attacker will face internal prison disciplinary proceedings for the attack, but Smyth will have to make a formal complaint to gardai if detectives are to mount a criminal investigation.
Although The Mirror has confirmed the details of the attack, the Prison Service declined to comment last night.
A spokesman said: “The Irish Prison Service do not comment on individual cases.”
When Smyth was caged for 20 years in February 2021 for the May 2017 murder bid on Mr Gately in north Dublin he boasted he would be out after just five world cups.
Mr Gately was shot five times as he sat in his car at the Topaz filling station on the Clonshaugh Road in north Dublin at lunchtime on May 10, 2017 – but survived.
During the trial the court viewed CCTV footage of the attack, in which gun-smoke was visible and the victim could be seen getting out of his car and falling to the ground.
The victim, who was warned by gardaí of a threat to his life and wore a bullet-proof vest, survived the shooting after sustaining injuries to his upper chest and neck.
Smyth with a last address at Cuileann Court, Donore, Co Meath, had pleaded not guilty to Mr Gately's attempted murder. He had also denied the possession of a firearm with intent to endanger on the same date and location. He was found guilty of both charges on January 5 last year and jailed in February.
Smyth himself narrowly avoided being murdered two years after the botched hit – when gardai saved his life.
Smyth was targeted for death by the father of murder victim Sean Little – who blamed him for his son’s gun killing north Dublin in May 2019.
Stephen Little planned to murder Smyth in revenge and was within an hour of having him killed when detectives from the elite Drugs and Organised Crime intervened in north Dublin in September 2019.
Stephen Little admitted possessing a firearm when gardai foiled the plot to kill Smyth – and later told detectives: “Had you given me another hour, I would have killed the bastard.”
Little was later caged for that plot for six years.
Maggo Gately was earlier this week given legal aid to defend to defend claims by the Criminal Asset Bureau (Cab) that his family home was bought with the proceeds of crime.
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