Dowdall said a 'massive amount of pressure' was put on him after he was granted bail and that Gerard Hutch 'put demands' on him.
Image: RollingNews.ie EX-SINN FÉIN COUNCILLOR, Jonathan Dowdall, a former co-accused of Gerard ‘The Monk’ Hutch who has turned State’s witness, has claimed that he was “set up” for the murder of Kinahan Cartel member David Byrne.
Asked by counsel about his assertion that Gerard Hutch came “looming out of the shadows” on Richmond Road on the eve of the Regency attack to collect key cards for a room at the hotel, Dowdall replied: “The Hutchs were willing to throw someone else under the bus; your client was willing to throw his own brother under the bus”.
He also told prosecution counsel Sean Gillane SC that the accused said he “wasn’t happy about shooting the young lad David Byrne and David Byrne being killed”. The witness said he was not on good terms with Gerard Hutch at the time but that Hutch had given him the transcripts for a few days. “Gerard Hutch was coming into my cell most mornings at 12am, I went along with Gerard, I had no other choice,” he said.
Dowdall said his objective in talking to Gardai in November 2021 was “to tell the truth”. “If I had told the truth about certain things when arrested I would never have been charged with murder,” he said. The ex-politician said he hadn’t explained things when he was charged with murder which was partly his fault but that part of the reason was the danger to his wife and children.
Grehan put it to the witness that his “natural way of defending” himself was to put Gerard Hutch in the frame “before and after” the Regency attack happened.Dowdall agreed with counsel that the only evidence the court had about Gerard Hutch collecting the hotel key card from him and “conversations of a confession” by the accused in a park was on his “say-so” and no one else’s.
“That would have looked like my father knew that man Flat Cap. That wasn’t the plan, that’s what was asked of my father. Yes I believe to try and connect that guy Kevin Murray to my father and me,” he said. Dowdall – who previously served as an elected Sinn Fein councillor in the north inner city ward in May 2014 and resigned less than one year later – was jailed by the Special Criminal Court for four years for the facilitation offence.
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