Senior Kinahan member Sean McGovern to be sentenced for directing crime gang

A MAN DESCRIBED as a “senior lieutenant” in the Kinahan organised crime gang is expected to be sentenced today.

Sean McGovern (40) pleaded guilty to two charges of directing the activities of a criminal organisation relating to the deadly Hutch-Kinahan gangland feud in which he himself was shot.

The charges relate to his involvement in the lead-up to the murder of Noel Kirwan, a grandfather who was shot dead in December 2016, and the targeting and monitoring of James ‘Mago’ Gately with a view to having him shot dead, which ultimately did not take place.

In May, a sentencing hearing for McGovern heard that he wanted to apologise for the hurt as a consequence of his actions.

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He is expected to learn his sentence at the Special Criminal Court in Dublin today.

The Special Criminal Court previously heard there was no evidence Noel Kirwan was involved in any criminality and had been targeted over a perceived connection to the Hutch organised crime group, as he had been photographed at a funeral of a Hutch family member.

Gardaí said McGovern had a role in the lead-up to the murder, linking him to activity through evidence relating to a tracker on Kirwan’s car and mobile phone calls around the time of the shooting.

The court had also been told of McGovern’s involvement in the surveillance of Gately, with gardaí coming to the view that the Kinahan gang believed he was one of the gunmen of the 2016 Regency Hotel Shooting in which the defendant was shot and another man was killed.

The shooting of Gately did not happen after a hitman hired from Estonia was arrested after he arrived in Ireland.

The court was also told that McGovern was a “senior lieutenant” who was “three tiers” down in the Kinahan organised crime gang. 

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