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The government will enact new legislation to increase the maximum prison sentence for conspiracy to murder to life in prison.
Gardaí, crime victims and members of the judiciary have in the past highlighted the perceived leniency of sentencing – currently a maximum of ten years – for such a serious crime.
Justice Minister Helen McEntee said the increase is targeting gang criminals.
He also announced that another separate new law would create three new terrorist offenses.
Nineteen members of the Kinahan Organized Crime Group have been incarcerated in the Special Criminal Court in the past two years, nine of them for murder conspiracy.
All have been incarcerated for less than ten years, the maximum sentence for the crime, which has remained that way since 1861.
The presiding judge of the Special Criminal Court, who found that Kinahan’s gang was involved in execution-style killings, also highlighted what he called this “anomaly” in the law when it comes to convicting gangsters involved in assassination attempts. .
Judge Tony Hunt said he intended to impose harsher penalties on the frustrated killers, but “their hands were tied” by law.
Alan Wilson, Dean Howe and Liam Brannigan, senior members of the Kinahan gang, were imprisoned for six, six and eight and a half years, respectively, for attempting to kill a rival gang member Hutch, while Estonian hitman Imre Arakas, who came to Ireland to kill a gang member from Hutch, was also given six years.
Today, the Minister of Justice announced that the Government will draft new legislation to increase the maximum penalty for conspiracy to murder to life imprisonment.
Helen Mc Entee said the law is directed at gang criminals and that the seriousness of the crime should be reflected in the sentences that judges can impose.
The Minister also announced that the Government approved a new bill, which will create new crimes of terrorism: traveling for terrorist purposes, organizing or facilitating such trips and receiving training for terrorism.
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