Judgment due in Gerry Hutch murder trial

Judgment will be delivered in Dublin later in the murder trial of Gerry “The Monk” Hutch.

Hutch is accused of the murder of David Byrne, 33, at a crowded boxing weigh-in event at Dublin’s Regency Hotel on February 5 2016 in one of the first deadly attacks of the Hutch-Kinahan gangland feud in Ireland.

The 60-year-old, from the Paddocks, Clontarf, has denied the charge of murder.

The high-profile trial in the non-jury Special Criminal Court in Dublin concluded in January after hearing 52 days of evidence.

During proceedings, former Sinn Fein councillor Jonathan Dowdall gave evidence as a prosecution witness.

Dowdall, who was to stand trial for murder, is serving a four-year prison sentence after he pleaded guilty to facilitating the murder of Mr Byrne.

Hutch’s defence team dismissed Dowdall’s evidence as unreliable and flawed.

The defendant is being held at Dublin’s Wheatfield Prison on remand having been extradited back to Ireland from Spain in September 2021.

Two other men, Paul Murphy, 61, of Cabra Road, Swords, and Jason Bonney, 52, of Drumnigh Wood in Portmarnock, were tried alongside Hutch.

They pleaded not guilty to lesser charges related to the murder.

Judgments will be delivered on Monday morning by the three-judge panel of Ms Justice Tara Burns and judges Sarah Berkeley and Grainne Malone.