A Co Armagh man who is the prime suspect in the murder of garda Adrian Donohoe will be charged next year, according to detectives investigating his death.
Detective Donohoe was shot and killed by an armed gang of five people during a robbery on a credit union in Lordship, Co Louth in 2013.
Detective Donohoe and his colleague Detective Garda Joe Ryan were on a routine two-person cash escort on the evening of Friday, January 25, 2013.
The pair were en route to meet local credit union officials at the Lordship Credit Union in Bellurgan, who would then travel in a three car convoy to a bank in Dundalk town to lodge takings in a nightsafe.
They were ambushed by an armed gang with one fatal shot being fired, killing Detective Donohoe.
The gang made off with the money, inadvertently leaving behind more than 30,000 euro.
According to the Irish Times – which quotes a garda source – all the members of the gang involved have been identified, including the man they believe fired the fatal shot.
The suspect, who is from Co Armagh, is serving a sentence for an unrelated offence.
Two other suspects are living in Massachusetts on American passports while a fourth is living between Newry and Dundalk.
The newspaper claims detectives are consulting the director of public prosecutions on what charges can be brought against the suspect, and others who helped him.
Earlier this year a specialist PSNI team searched land near Crossmaglen for a shotgun they believe was used in the murder, however, that turned up nothing.
They were searching the land as they believe the sawn-off shotgun was buried there following the robbery.
Speaking in 2016, Nóirín O’Sullivan, then the garda commissioner, accepted the murder investigation had been a lengthy one but that the force remained determined to bring the perpetrators to justice.
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