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A hired gunman who was part of an assault team that fired seven rounds in 15 seconds at dissident Michael Barr has become the seventh killer jailed in the deadly enmity between Kinahan and Hutch.
David Hunter was one of two men in bathing suits and Freddy Krueger masks who broke into Sunset House and killed Barr.
The 35-year-old was targeted by the Kinahan Cartel because they suspected he was one of the gunmen who broke into the Regency Hotel in an attempt to shoot Daniel Kinahan in February 2016.
Kinahan fled around the back when henchman David Byrne was shot and killed in the lobby. The murder sparked a dispute between the mob that has claimed 18 lives.
Michael Barr was the third victim of the cartel’s bloody revenge.
Today, the Special Criminal Court ruled that Liverpool-born Hunter, residing at Du Cane Road, White City, London, was one of the Halloween-masked gunmen who shot and killed the native of Tyrone at Sunset House in central the north city of Dublin on April 25. , 2016.
Two gunmen dressed in boiler suits and rubber Freddy Krueger masks entered the north town pub around 9 p.m. and shot Barr five times in the head, once in the leg and once in the shoulder.
The well-known dissident had been living in Finglas and was enjoying a night off from his job as a bar manager to attend a fundraiser for the wives of IRA prisoners when he was beaten.
His then-girlfriend told the trial that she had texted him to say she wanted to go home and eat Chinese takeout.
One of 168 witnesses in the six-week trial described seeing the two men enter the pub.
He heard “five or six” shots and saw Mr. Barr on the ground. He ran out and saw two men dressed in black rushing from the scene towards a car.
Another woman said at the trial: “When the door was opened, I thought it was a joke, people were having fun, I thought it was a kissogram. I heard some banging and saw two guys in wrinkled rubber masks the color of Halloween skin.
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“Someone yelled ‘get down’ but my bag got caught and then the mirror crashed into me. Everyone was screaming and then we were all on the ground.
“He was crawling on the floor, I crawled over to him and blessed him because I’m religious. I crawled around looking for friends and then the guards came in and they were worse than everyone else, telling everyone to get off. “
Hunter’s accomplice, Eamon Cumberton, was previously convicted of being the other gunman.
The 30-year-old from Mountjoy Street, Dublin 7, is serving a life sentence.
They were arrested after a failed attempt to set fire to an escaping car left a trove of forensic evidence.
The silver Audi A6 was set on fire on Walsh Road in Drumcondra at 9.20pm on the night of the murder.
However, Gardai arrived, put out the fire, and discovered four weapons, including the murder weapon, boiler suits, balaclavas and rubber masks in the back seat.
They also found a “burner” phone, which had several missed calls, next to a bullet in the nearby grass.
Hunter’s DNA was found in two masks, a ski mask and a latex mask discovered in the partially burned getaway car after the murder.
The 41-year-old had claimed that he had come to Ireland from Liverpool on the ferry two days earlier to see a UB40 concert, but it had already taken place.
He also claimed that he had left a balaclava with his DNA in the getaway car two months earlier when he arrived in Ireland in February of that year to steal a car.
(Image: Collins Photo Agency)
However, he was unable to explain why his DNA was found on the latex mask that the court determined he was wearing on the night of the murder.
Hunter also received a phone call an hour after the murder from one of the four phones used that night.
He told the gardai that he had received a call that night from a man looking to buy his red BMW car that he brought to Ireland to sell.
The Special Criminal Court considered this to be “incredible and false”.
He found it was more likely that when the gang couldn’t put Hunter on the burner phone that fell off after the murder that night, they would call him on his personal UK mobile phone.
Hunter admitted that he bought a new phone in Holyhead before boarding the ferry to Dublin, two days before the murder.
He said that after the murder he sold his car so he could get to Spain to enroll in a residential rehabilitation program, but he spent half the value of the car on two tickets, one in the name of Tom Wood, a flight to Malaga that was never used.
The court did not accept that his trip to Dublin was for “one last adventure” before registering for rehab.
His defense attorney said he was “not a James Bond, but a car thief.”
Judge Alex Owens said the court was certain of Hunter’s guilt and that he was one of two gunmen who entered the pub and killed Michael Barr.
The presiding judge of the Special Criminal Court also described Hunter’s explanations as “implausible.”
Hunter, he said, cannot explain where he was at the time of the murder, did not innocently give a credible explanation, and the facts along with the circumstantial evidence prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
He now faces the mandatory life sentence.
Martin Aylmer, 33, of Casino Park, Marino, Dublin 3, pleaded guilty to aiding the murderers by purchasing six prepaid mobile phones in the run-up to the murder. He was sentenced to six years.
Michael Barr’s father, Colin, has previously asked the state to go after the cartel bosses behind his son’s murder.
He has urged law enforcement to follow Daniel Kinahan to his hideout in Dubai.
He said families were terrified of the poster, but added: “I am not afraid of them.”
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